Caligula, arugula, ridiculous...-Does Bill Maher's movie pronounce the G re-LIG-you-luss or re-lidge-youluss?
-The movie, now matter how it's pronounced, is as absurd as the bible says everything is, I would have to say. The bible says God believes everything is futility and nonsense. Even love, I guess.
God approves his and this message. It meets the seal of approval. No, it's not one of the 7 seals.
-Religion is a way (that tries) to make sense of the madness, give meaning and importance to lives that, truth be told, only have as much meaning as one gives to it. There's nothing wrong with institutional lies. You reflect on them, and learn the truth by assembling data and arguments that refute the sillinesses. Or you believe them, which makes for an interesting, if not entertaining, world. Figuring things out for yourself gives you a stronger hold on Truth and Reality. Your view of self can be the ruler of the universe (in your own head, if not anyone else's), or head of household, or a worm, and you'll still be as infinitely small and unimportant in the grand (supposed) scheme of things (or as large and crucial) as anyone else. That's what I believe. Maybe there is a grand poo-bah in the sky. There are movie stars and politicians and historically important people and geniuses, but at heart we're all the same, in my view. Unfortunately, people are likely to think their perspective applies to everyone else, too. I think people can quite often be misguided about what they should do to make others happy. Because people are different, the golden rule can sometimes be rotten. And people may just eat what isn't shoved down their throats.
-we say there's a scheme, incidentally, when it's all a bunch of sturm und drang (storm and stress), noise, motion, and complex unfolding of fate, it seems, where all of us are like billiard balls and God holds the Q. Would you rather hit the balls or be knocked around, lol.
Aside: Either fate is good, and designed by a grand schemer, or we each are free to scheme up our own lives, as our own gods. What a horrible theology it would be to think we are all satan's pawns, and we are all fated for death, suffering, torment, and punishment for not being perfect, by some mysterious criteria. I think life is a big mess, and we clean it up in our heads through all sorts of ways, often at variance. Beliefs are funny things. Almost too easy to make fun of, at times.
Maybe fate exists without any God, and my sense of being a first mover is delusional. Maybe we are all free participants in everyone else's fate, and as Jesus said, we don't know what we're doing. We all make waves, and some waves are bigger than others, and some waves are constructive and others destructive. Stillness and peace and calm and tranquility is important.
The movie begins atop Meggido, from which the word Armageddon is derived, with Bill Maher introducing a particularly bizarre bit of Christian theology, in which Jesus is supposed to come at the end of the world, and save only those who believe in his name. That would be Yeshua, right? Yeshua, 7. Jesus Christ, 7. Am I being asked to believe in 7, at the cost of not being "saved", whatever that means.
A "savior" is usually conceived as being an anti-negative. Saved from death or torment, etc. But any savior worth his salt, in my view, would be pro-positive, and be a maker of heavenly experience, such as being in love. So God is like that cherub with the bow and arrow. If God is love, then ultimate happiness would be being IN GOD. Which can be taken literally, in two ways. For me, it could be being inside my wife, hubba hubba, or I should start eating people (since I'm not really about insertion). Or, God could be taken to mean the world, and those who are "out of it" (it being God) are in some sense removed from reality, or delusional and/or psychotic. Delusional means having false beliefs, and psychotic means being in a mental state caused by psychiatric or organic illness, characterized by a loss of contact with reality and an inability to think rationally. A psychotic person often behaves inappropriately and is incapable of normal social functioning. This is all defined by consensus. Consensus reality is a bitch, if you're an atheist or agnostic, sometimes. Virtually everyone is delusional, in my opinion. Not that I care, necessarily. A delusional reality may very well be much more enjoyable than a horrifying truth. Reality has to be good, even when it clearly isn't, for so many. I guess reality gets converted into happy wellness one believer at a time, and you have to start with yourself. Prison can be a religious place. Psychology trumps the indifference of the universe. As Kurt Cobain sang, dive in me.
If God is everything, and God is good, then everything is good (which it clearly isn't). You can't fault God, though; he's trying (he's just not omnipotent).
I suppose we have the technology at this time to "save people," in some sense, like virtually in a computer or something, and humanity can certainly destroy itself and play God with the delete function, too. By the way, I'm not asking you to believe in your own divinity. Submission is just fine. Some people are lions, and other sheep. Slaves can become Masters, and v.v. I'm really not into a hierarchy of a great chain of being. I'm not into the first shall be last, either.
Maybe God is a rotating position, and my claim to divinity is like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I was the San Francisco mayor for a day, lol. Bill Maher doesn't like self-fulfilling prophecy, for some reason. He seems to be of the persuasion that religion can only screw things up, as it is "detrimental to the progress of humanity." Personally, I think anything can be anything. Shit can be diamonds, and vice versa. "Religion" covers a lot of ground, and what may work for some may not for others. God only knows whether religion, writ large, is helpful or harmful, in the bigger picture (ha). I'm not about to rank religions for you, but I would recommend that you be open to the best wisdom from all of them.
Religion is one way for people's imaginations run wild. Schizophrenics or people who hear the voice of God or who feel possessed maybe can integrate into a crazy world better if they cloak their experience in religion, babbling in tongues or whatnot. It's so much easier to say the devil made me buy this dress, or God told me to ask you for money, or whatever...an angel came to me in the form of a sea monkey.
I liked Maher's point about religion kind of being on autopilot, with people reenacting rituals just as something to do, like cutting the grass around a mysterious, possibly alien, form of a man with an erection on a British hillside. The aliens might have godlike power(s), or we could worship the image, too. Maybe the image is of Jesus, with a monstrous shlong. George Carlin prayed to Danny Devito or something, so what's the harm. I liked Bill's preaching the crazy gospel of scientology. Not much difference from the others, in my opinion. I also liked his interview ith "Dr." Jeremiah, in which God turns out to be the ultimate pimp, or something. Pimps my ride to heaven on a white horse, like Gandolf. Like a convertible white Mustang. Good stuff. The immaculate conception and virgin birth are some truly bizarre beliefs, and it was good to see the 4 other gods who fit the bill on that score, including Luke Skywalker (?). I liked his openness about his personal history with a jewish mom and catholic dad and sibling, although I think it would have been fun for him to have said, 'Yes, I am God' to see where that would have gone. JL Jesus Miranda was fun. Sarah Silverman and Kathy Griffin are edgy like that.
-If you're crazy (or supersane?), brooks can babble, asses and snakes can talk, and people can live inside a giant fish (maybe a whale was made into a boat). Bringing a lawyer into confession is a weird concept, but potentially plausible. What a world. Cool movie.
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