The relentless way Bill Maher derides the intelligence of anyone who believes in God is proof positive that Mr. Bill is convinced he’s a genius. Although most liberals exhibit a similar “the dummies need us to think for them” propensity, when it comes to matters of religious faith, Maher elevates the affliction to a whole new level.

And while it’s pure speculation on my part, based on his juvenile behavior, it appears as if Maher is a disgruntled Catholic trying desperately to convince himself God doesn’t exist; so regardless of how bright he perceives himself to be, Maher lacks the insight to realize that he’s revealing something he’d probably prefer the rest of America not to notice.

For someone as mentally deficient as Maher believes I am, even as far back as the first grade I recognized that there was no direct correlation between parochial school and the personhood of God. Yet for all Maher’s clever innuendo and sarcastic banter, it must go deeper than that, because this man apparently isn’t astute enough to separate Catholicism from God.

Maher was raised by an Irish Catholic father and a mother (Julie, nee Berman) that he was unaware was Jewish until he was a teenager (which right there reeks of family dysfunction). Seems somewhere around the age of 13, when hormone-infused Bill, had he been raised a Jew, might have been practicing his Hebrew to prepare for an upcoming Bar Mitzvah, Maher’s Catholic dad realized birth control was a good idea after all.

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Why Christian symbols? We’re awfully easy pickings. If you’re a rich Hollywood star, offending us takes about as much courage as bringing a case of beer to a frat party.

Why not Islamic images? Where’s that comedic edge and ballsy envelope pushing we’re always being told about when it comes to our Artistic Class? Christians are tired of this self-important posing. Islamists will take your head off. I would think that Islamist intolerance (and racism and sexism and homophobia and fundamentalism) would be a bigger target than than Christian eye rolls.

Well, if nohing else, at least Gervais was good enough to bring the pretension:

 I thought the caption … could be “Stand up for what you believe”.

Doesn’t he mean for “what you don’t believe”?

Actually, he doesn’t. That’s why I call him Gervais an “evangelical atheist.” He’s one of those obnoxious non-believers always pushing his non-belief on you. He’s like a Mooonie without the charm, flowers or airport.

Back to the pretension:

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In a piece last week, I documented what critics have said about an apparent anti-Christian theme in Simon Pegg’s upcoming science-fiction comedy “Paul” — just more of the strident, boorish evangelical atheism we’re seeing from our entertainment overlords these days. In a recent interview, Pegg’s obvious contempt and intolerance for those who don’t conform to his disbelief system comes through quite clearly.

 HeyUGuys!:

It’s a fun movie, but do you think you’re going to get any flak from the Bible belt in America?

Simon Pegg: Who doesn’t get flak from the Bible belt in America?

I wonder if Pegg’s ever spent any real time in America’s Bible belt? You know, just checked into a motel somewhere and spent a week hanging out with the commoners. Regardless, I have a better question: Name a lazy, lockstep, conformist member of the entertainment community who hasn’t stereotyped the Bible belt in America in order to earn their bona fides as a lazy, lockstep, conformist member of the entertainment community. Ridiculing Christians isn’t brave or edgy. What are we going to do, pray for your Hellbound ass? Write a blog post? In the meantime, the rewards are legion. Hollywood loves you even more. You’re a member of Niedermeyer’s frat in high standing. Better yet, some in the media will lie and tell you you’re brave!

Pegg’s comment is followed by what amounts to an explanation of the thinking behind the film’s “anti-Creationist” elements:

Nick Frost: [co-star] As I said to Simon early, it’s a road movie with an alien in it. If they’re going to get annoyed at that… Really, if you have faith then a film about a dope-smoking alien isn’t going to affect that. It’s just another way of seeing. We were really interested in the idea that someone could have their belief system shattered by a single moment, and that’s why Ruth, Kristen’s character, is a Creationist, is a very specific wing of Christianity, which you can’t have a film with an alien in and it not be counter to that idea. Even Mac and Me is an anti-Creationist film because there’s an alien in it. We’re not being anti-religion; it’s just that’s the universe that the film takes place in. Paul at one point – I think the line was lost in the end – said: “I don’t know. I’m just saying there probably isn’t”. Certainly, that sort of dogma can’t exist if Paul exists, and we love the idea of Ruth suddenly just changing from being one thing to another in a second, and that was it. It wasn’t a crusade again organised religion.

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In a “holiday” message from “Office” creator Ricky Gervais, the world famous atheist spends about five paragraphs essentially ridiculing the inability of we Believers to articulate exactly why it is we believe in God. Then, laughably, he goes on to tell the story of his own deep, thoughtful, intellectual conversion from Christian to atheist:

One day when I was about 8 years old, I was drawing the crucifixion as part of my Bible studies homework. I loved art too. And nature. I loved how God made all the animals. They were also perfect. Unconditionally beautiful. It was an amazing world. …

I was sitting at the kitchen table when my brother came home. He was 11 years older than me, so he would have been 19. He was as smart as anyone I knew, but he was too cheeky. He would answer back and get into trouble. I was a good boy. I went to church and believed in God[.] …

But anyway, there I was happily drawing my hero when my big brother Bob asked, “Why do you believe in God?” Just a simple question. But my mum panicked. “Bob,” she said in a tone that I knew meant, “Shut up.” Why was that a bad thing to ask? If there was a God and my faith was strong it didn’t matter what people said.

Oh…hang on. There is no God. He knows it, and she knows it deep down. It was as simple as that. I started thinking about it and asking more questions, and within an hour, I was an atheist.

Wow. No God. If mum had lied to me about God, had she also lied to me about Santa? Yes, of course, but who cares? The gifts kept coming. And so did the gifts of my new found atheism.

Oh. Well. Case closed then.

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In 2006, while accepting the Academy Award for playing a husky, grizzled version of himself, George Clooney famously gushed, “…this Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I’m proud to be a part of this Academy. I’m proud to be part of this community. I’m proud to be out of touch.”

My apologies for bringing up old crap, but Clooney’s statement, especially the part about how he’s so proud to be out of touch, is one of the most bafflingly odd things I’ve ever heard coming from Clooney, who’s also famous for telling anyone who’ll listen that everybody tells him all the time how brave he was for making a black and white movie about the red scare. It’s very revealing that Clooney would say this, to cheers, a mere three years after a child-rapist was handed an award by that same Academy. (more…)

In a world of Starland Vocal Bands, Lady GaGas, Bon Jovis, Snoop Doggs and 1910 Fruitgum Companies, it takes real talent to write a song so unbelievably horrible that it transcends mere awfulness and crosses the frontier into a whole new realm of sheer crappiness.  An artistic, musical and philosophical failure of staggering proportions, John Lennon’s “Imagine” is the worst song of all time.

Many feel this ballad is a touching hymn that gives voice to man’s yearning for a better world.  They are wrong.  “Imagine” is a cloying, boggy, sonic swamp of numb-skulled sentiments that sound like they were recycled from a bong-fueled, 2 a.m. bull session between a couple of pampered, credulous UC Berkeley lit majors.  It’s the national anthem of the hopey/changey crowd — all at once pretentious, smug, tiresome and intellectually bankrupt.  (more…)

So what we have here are two worlds. One, without God and controlled by thoughts of evolution, is a spectacularly dreary, unhappy place without love or meaning. On the other hand, even a fictional God brings the world meaning, joy, liberty, and wonder.

The Invention of Lying tells a fantasy story about a world in which people do not know how to lie. The conceit is that lying is the product of a gene no human had before it suddenly popped up in Gervais’s character, forty-something failure Mark Bellison. But instead of simply being a cute comedy based on a silly concept, The Invention of Lying is an ambitious, largely unfunny comedy based on a silly concept. It’s not nearly as cute, innocent, or funny as Gervais’s fans might expect.

In fact, it’s really rather dreary. Yet it does have some good points. Although the early scenes in the film, in which we see Mark’s sad, unsuccessful life, are pretty depressing, there as some funny moments after he invents lying. In addition, the philosophy behind the film is sufficiently confused and inconsistent to be more interesting than one might expect.

Before Mark invents lying, no one in the society is truly happy. They speak with brutal honesty toward one another, in particular calling attention to one another’s faults and their own very base desires, and no one seems to mind the situation too much. (more…)

So for the second time in about as many weeks, I’m hearing from Brad Pitt on religion. First, there was the absurd, “Eighty percent agnostic, twenty percent atheist” comment, and now he jokes that he’s running on the “no religion” platform in the New Orleans mayoral race. The leap from being atheist to being against religion fascinates me.

Why can’t you simply not believe in God? Surely atheism can exist without a hatred of religion. It’s particularly disturbing that the disdain atheistic non-religionistas have for religion is pretty much limited to Christianity – from my experience. I knew an atheist who was offended when someone at work played a CD by Christian rock band “Third Day.”

But I can sympathize to a degree, after all my son believes in this nut that dresses in a red outfit, is friendly with reindeer, and gives kids presents. Crazy, I know, but my kid runs around singing about this obese clown coming to town, or some nonsense — and IT JUST OFFENDS THE CRAP OUT OF ME!!! (more…)

On the heels of a public-relations juggernaut with the inspiring (and arguably false) message that it’s “not as anti-Catholic as The Da Vinci Code!”,the cinematic conspiracy thriller Angels and Demons finished first at the U.S. box office during the past weekend, providing some useful evidence about the effects of church boycotts.

Based on a novel by Dan Brown, author of The Da Vinci Code, and featuring the same director-star team as the lucrative 2006 film adaptation of that novel (Ron Howard and Tom Hanks), Angels and Demons brought in approximately $48 million during its first weekend. While enough to edge out Star Trek’s second-weekend take of $43 million, it’s a good deal less than Da Vinci, which snagged a gaudy $77 million during its first three days.

Simple Hollywood film economics explains the matter quite well without reference to any hypothetical backfire effect from church boycotts. (more…)

I have three words for the next person who tries to tell me there’s no liberal bias in the mainstream media.  Or more precisely, three letters:  N, P, and R, as in National Public Radio.  This past Saturday’s “Morning Edition” ended with an interview of Rowan LeCompte, the 85-year old man who has devoted his life to creating and maintaining the stained glass features of the National Cathedral in Washington.  After briefly recapping his subject’s remarkable life-in-art host Scott Simon took the interview in a different direction by asking LeCompte, “Do you believe in God?”  His response was as follows:  

“I believe in kindness and love, and there are those who say those are God.  I don’t know, but I respect and love kindness and love, and worship them, and if I’m worshipping God, then I’m delighted.”   

Hmmm.  Well, no, Mr. LeCompte, you are most definitely not worshipping God by worshipping kindness and love, as worthy as those two pursuits might otherwise be.  Even I, a non-practicing Christian, know that.  But he continued: 

“I love love, and I love kindness, and I wish the churches would emphasize more the kindness.  Kindness to everybody,” he added, rather pointedly.    (more…)

Notice how I avoided using the word “Retarded?” I’ve seen that many conservatives have developed a sudden hyper-sensitivity for the disabled this week, so I’ve opted to tread lightly.

The truth is that atheism is literally a “retarded” philosophy in the sense that it is very “late to the table” in its thinking. Atheists will tell you that religion impedes the progress of man. To that I say “Poppycock!”, and that atheism has no place in a civilized society. Think I’m wrong? Let me know, amigos.

…Yes, I used the word “poppycock,” and no I don’t wear a monocle.

The biggest problem with atheism is that it’s a philosophy which, at its very core, diminishes the value of life. If we were simply spawned from a puddle of gook, human life has no intrinsic value. Human worth is ultimately left up to societal circumstances, and that’s never a good thing… Especially if said society is Hollywood. (more…)