Vic

Kirk to Enterprise,,, Kirk to Enterprise!!!

Scotty !!!!

Get off your high horse, religious people don’t “need” movies to reassure them either. This movie is simply something that religious people can find inspirational and entertaining. And it appears that your logic is “epic fail” anyhow since Maher’s movie seems to be a movie for atheists to reassure themselves that they are not “wacko” like these crazy religious people…

I know your point is not the movies themselves, but the box office sales, the box office sales, like so many atheists here have pointed out, is more likely to do with the fact that there are more religious people than atheists. So it does nothing to prove your point since on a statistical standpoint, about the same percentage of atheists went to see Maher’s movie as religious people seeing Fireproof. Except the difference here is that Fireproof isn’t some mean-spirited spiteful anti-atheist movie, but a “positive” movie if you happen to be religious. Again, they are “for” something and not “against” something. Like the saying goes, if you don’t stand for anything, you’ll fall for anything.

Just in case you’re curious, being an agnostic means I’m “for” anything that I deem has been proven or have seen enough evidence of. Same can be said about atheists EXCEPT the difference and the thing that makes an atheist an atheist is that they are AGAINST religion. People always claim that being an atheist means to be for science. But that’s actually not correct. You can be an atheist without believing in science. The ONLY criterion that would set you apart specifically as an atheist is someone who believes there is no God. There are people who don’t believe in science, but for some reason, maybe because enough bad things have happened to them, that they believe there must not be a God. They are atheists. There are people who believe in science, and also believe there is no God. They are also atheists. And there are people who believe in science, but at the same time they believe in God. They are religious. Do you see the difference? The only relation between ALL atheists is that they are against the concept of a god or gods. Nothing else unifies them, not science, not evolution.

That’s my point about atheism being more of an anti-belief than an actual belief. Atheism cannot exist without religion, but religion can exist without atheism. Without religion, everyone would be automatically agnostics since they are not picking any sides since there are no sides to pick from.

But again, I am not saying I think it’s wrong for someone to be an atheist, but I do think it’s wrong for them to be telling other people that they shouldn’t be religious. As an agnostic, I have always stood by the belief that everyone is right in their own beliefs, they will go to whatever heaven or no heaven at all when they die because that’s what they believe up until those final moments. So that’s all that matters. I’ve always defended religious people against the spiteful attitude of atheists who only want to insult religious people, and have to fend off religious people trying to convert me to whatever religion it is they support.

I hate being the middle man…

Great comment and I understand what you’re saying. Fireproof was certainly no cinematic tour de force, but I enjoyed it for its message. This was an unusual post for this site so I hope you stick around.

@stygyan said,
“I could say maybe it is because we atheists can be atheists without movies to reassure us in our particular view of the world.”

Um, no one I know that saw this movie needed it to “reassure” them, no more than a fan of the “Saw” movies watches those to reassure them that there is cruelty in the world.

Vic

I watch Bill Maher regularly for his political commentary and his comedy which I enjoy. I stay away from most religious entertainment (with the exception of some of the better Jars of Clay songs) because the majority of it isn’t that good. Period. I’m sorry, it’s not about the message – unless it’s crammed down my gullet -, rather, it’s about a lack of artistry.

My father is also veteran of the DC fire department and him and I have a really difficult time watching movies about firefighters. Not because of the reactions they might invoke due to the lives being risked in this occupation but because of the ridiculous way that the job is presented. Fireproof was no exception in this regard.

I watched both Fireproof and Religulous and couldn’t stand the former. The main reason for this was because I just didn’t find it to be good cinema. I felt that the acting was stale, the script was frustratingly overt with its message, and the direction was mediocre at best.

Religulous, as somebody mentioned earlier, is an entirely different type of movie – it’s a documentary and you absolutely have to evaluate them on different terms. The sheer act of crafting a documentary is very, very different than making a narrative feature. They don’t exist within the same plane of film regardless of the message pushed. To say that you could argue them for the reasons you stated is mostly incorrect.

While I don’t always enjoy the way that Maher goes after religion, I felt that his movie was much softer than I expected it to be. I expected no-holds-barred and I got somewhere between leaning and biased.

Neither movie was an important turning point in the history of cinema and I certainly don’t think that either will change anyone’s mind on the topic of their own spirituality. Rather, these movies were made for their respective audiences. Maher’s film, in my opinion, comes out ahead because its message was blatant and out there from the beginning; it made no pretenses. Fireproof tried too hard, I feel, in the second and third acts to get its message across. I believe that it’s an inferior film because of this reason, and those that I mentioned before.

Interesting site though.

Atheism doesn’t tell me to believe in something we can’t see and touch. A lot of religions do. The burden of proof is on the religions if we start talking about “proofs”.

I’m unable to prove non-existence of pink unicorns that defy laws of physics. But that doesn’t mean that my opinion that such things don’t exist somehow are on equal footing with pro-unicorn crowd because they can’t prove their existence either.

Well, if you put this into the same perspective of religion, them believing there is anthrax in the box would not affect me as an “agnostic” or one who doesn’t know for sure. I would still open the box, but if they want to choose to believe that a box they receive might have anthrax and go get it tested that’s their perogative.

I don’t think it’s a good comparison anyhow, since you can actually prove and disprove that, so it is pointless to make assumptions when the truth is just a knife cut away. Religion is something that cannot be proven nor can it be disproven. So nice try, you have two tries left.

You say it’s ok to make a movie asking religious people why and then only showing the ones that are funny. What if I made a movie where I go around asking people why they are voting for whichever candidate you support, but not asking the ones supporting the other, and then I only show the ones with a funny response and don’t show the ones that are normal. You say I’m being objective and not trying to single anyone out?

Answer that question.

If this was fair and objective, wouldn’t he have been asking atheists how they are so sure there isn’t a God, how they have managed the impossible to prove a negative. Does he do that in this movie?

Wait, who’s bible?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Hammurabi
Credit for rule of law,
not yours.

There were laws before the bible.

Also… as for right and wrong, although I understand a large amount of people take moral notices from the bible, right and wrong are a taught concept. Not from the bible but from moral people.

I still haven’t had a chance to see both movies. I am trying hard to actually find a cinema that shows religulous, although i am not sure if it is out yet here in the UK.

One is an action/drama movie, one is a documentary. I think most people, when asked if they want to see an action/drama or a documentary movie, they’d choose the action/drama.

In addition, I’m not sure if everyone who saw Fireproof knew that it had a Christian theme.

There’s nothing to consider here and I don’t think you can draw any meaningful conclusion.

If that’s putting something/one down, then Socrates was an asshole.