@Joshua: I take your point about the film's willin...

2009-03-10T08:12:00.000-05:00

@Joshua: I take your point about the film's willingness to include intelligent religious individuals, to its credit. Those segments, though, were brief, and I cynically suspect that was because it was becoming readily apparent that Maher wasn't going to be able to make these individuals look ignorant and close minded.

It's the "iron sharpens iron" (Prov 27:17) thing--I'd like to see that kind of debate and give-and-take, but in Religulous just as soon as it starts to get interesting Maher, seemingly unprepared to deal with an intelligent opponent, bails.

I had earlier seen the movie and came away somewha...

2009-03-09T20:40:00.000-05:00

I had earlier seen the movie and came away somewhat disappointed. My own major disappointment was Maher's repetition of various claimed similarities of Jesus to Mithra and Horus which are either wrong or misleading but are commonly repeated in atheistic circles.

However, I disagree with your characterization of the Collins and Coyne sections. Indeed, the fact that Maher included those segments speaks to his intellectual honesty. The basic point of Maher's movie, that there a lot of ridiculous beliefs out there and that many of them are actively harmful, isn't something than can be removed by discussion with intellectuals. In that regard, Maher's interaction with Coyne and Collins is extremely positive; it shows that he is willing to acknowledge at some level that intelligent religious individuals exist.

Comments on Kickin' the Darkness: The Disappointment of Religulous

@Joshua: I take your point about the film's willin...

I had earlier seen the movie and came away somewha...