When reading the article, Ridiculous Religulous, readers get a clear view of Dr. Craig Hazen’s personal views on the movie. He provides a thorough and factual view of Religulous, but not without many flaws, which make the readers question his authenticity. Although Ridiculous Religulous contains many flaws, Dr. Craig Hazen clearly shows the readers a fresh opinion on Religulous that one may not see. Hazen starts his review by stating that this movie is anything but original. He claims that those who might enjoy it would need to be Maher fans. Hazen states that this movie really does not have anything to offer its viewers, even though it claims to tell the truth about religion. The movie brings up two points: the New Testament was written way later than the events actually happened and the stories of Jesus are just a poor retelling of other myths. Hazen debunks these myths by stating citations from scripture and pointing out Maher’s lack of citations and research. Hazen concludes his essay by evaluating the topic of faith and clearly states that this movie does not deserve a sequel. …show more content…
Throughout reading the essay, readers can clearly see that Hazen is a very religious man. This creates a very bias view on the movie and shows why he found no humor in Religulous. However, once the reader gets past the bias view of Hazen they can see that he provides some good insight. He shows the readers that if they were looking to gain any knowledge from this movie than they will be let down. Maher conducted zero research throughout creating this movie and the “facts” that he presents are simply wrong. Hazen quotes scripture to prove his argument about the New Testament and clearly has vast knowledge about
The contents of the Bible have dealt with controversy in regards to its inerrancy since publication, and will surely continue to. Historians progress to learn more about biblical stories in order to provide evidence for the reliability of information. Many believers today understand that not everything in the Bible has been factually proven. An outstanding topic many scholars pay attention to lies within the four gospels. The three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, replay essentially the same story with minor inconsistencies, while John portrays Jesus in an entirely different way. The differences in each gospel are due to how each gospel entertains different portrayals of the life and understanding of Jesus himself, in order to persuade
“Religion Gives Meaning to Life” outlines how life is given meaning through theistic religion in Louis Pojman’s opinion. In this short reading, autonomy is described as in the meaning of freedom or self-governing and argues how it is necessary for ideal existence. By being honest and faithful with ourselves shows how we can increase our autonomy. “I think most of us would be willing to give up a few autonotoms for an enormous increase in happiness” (553) shows our willingness to practice good purpose.
doesn’t give him the right to question others beliefs in this manipulative, and demeaning way. This film
Moore investigates the attitudes, behavior, and perception of Americans regarding their respective individual sacred and secular lives. He is interested in the roles of popular culture and religion and in addition, how popular culture affected the shift in boundaries between sacredness and secularism, particularly how these practices shape American religion. We live in a complex society and social structure that is structured with norms and values that they themselves structure the way we interpret and interact with others.
Richard Rodriguez bravely addresses three controversial sub-topics under one topic full of debate. His essay, “Desert Religions” aired in 2002, highlights the shame and violence that has been associated to religion. The essayist discusses human sexuality under the interpretation of religion, the role war and terrorism play, and the masculine and feminine roles in religion.
As children, we are often told stories, some of which may have practical value in the sense of providing young minds with lessons and morals for the future, whereas some stories create a notion of creativity and imagination in the child. In Karen Armstrong’s piece, “Homo Religiosus”, a discussion of something similar to the topic of storytelling could translate to the realm of religion. Armstrong defines religion as a, “matter of doing rather than thinking” (17) which she describes using an example in which adolescent boys in ancient religions, who were not given the time to “find themselves” but rather forced into hunting animals which ultimately prepares these boys to be able to die for their people, were made into men by the process of doing.
I chose this topic for personal reasons primarily as an exploration of my own faith and my own ideas about religion. I believe that one of the reasons the book has become controversial is that religion is a very hard thing to discuss in quantitative terms. If you ask three people what it means to be Christian, you will get three different answers. Some feel being baptized is sufficient. Others feel you must accept the Bible as immutable historical fact. Still others require a belief that all those who do not accept Christ as their personal savior are doomed to hell. Faith is a continuum, and we each fall on that line where we may. By attempting to rigidly classify heavenly concepts like faith, we end up debating semantics to the point where we entirely miss the fact that we are all trying to decipher life's big mysteries.
Religion, by far, is one of the most dominant forces the human race has ever seen. It has influenced and continues to influence billions of people all over the world. It has driven some of the most beneficial cooperative humanitarian efforts and some of the most heinous acts of violence anybody can perpetuate on another human being. In his book, When Religion Becomes Evil, Dr. Charles Kimball explores the causes and slippery slopes that lead to these kinds of atrocious behaviors. Many of his points were incredibly well thought out and valid, but one repetitive phrase that Dr. Kimball used caught my attention: “authentic religion.” This one phrase contains so many troublesome presuppositions that it is impossible not to question.
If a film’s success is measured by the cultural hysteria it produces, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s film The Blair Witch Project was the most successful cult film in recent history. At the surface, Blair Witch is about three young college filmmakers who decide to shoot a documentary about the “legendary” Blair Witch, a character said to be responsible for the deaths of many local children over th...
"A Critique of Inherit the Wind: Analyzing One of the Most Anti-Christian Films in History." Protestantism. Web. 02 June 2010.
...only parts that took away from the message were the Datham and Nefreteri stories. These just added drama to the story and didn’t show the power of God to its fullest extent.
Hitchens, Christopher. God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 2007. Print.
One could easily dismiss movies as superficial, unnecessarily violent spectacles, although such a viewpoint is distressingly pessimistic and myopic. In a given year, several films are released which have long-lasting effects on large numbers of individuals. These pictures speak
When I saw Lars and the Real Girl on the choices of movies for this project, I knew exactly what I wanted to write about. I really enjoyed this movie and its uniqueness. This movie has the most unique plot I have ever witnessed in a film. At the end of the movie, Margo says to Lars, “There will never be one like her” in reference to Bianca. In reality, there will never be a movie like this one. What I enjoyed most about this film was it was a Christian film but wasn’t a Christian film. What I mean by that is that it didn’t just throw Christianity in your face while watching it. Nothing about this film seemed fake. It never seemed as if the writer was trying to tell you one specific message of the film. The writer was simply telling a story, and leaving it up to the audience to figure out what the message of the story was for that particular person. The writer left it up for the audience’s interpretation. Everything in this film seemed genuine and real. It was something that I really could see happening at my church community. I will be honest when I first read the initial plot before I watched the movie; I was skeptical of how this movie would involve Christianity, but after watching the whole movie I saw that there were elements of Christianity all throughout the movie. From the perception of the church to the common beliefs of the characters, the Christian faith was shown in all aspects of the movie. Lars and the Real is not only a movie, but it is a lesson that through faith and the strength of a community a troubled soul can be healed. There are four specific items I am going to address in this paper: the message of the film regarding the Christian metanarrative, the way Christianity was...
Smart, Ninian. "Blackboard, Religion 100." 6 March 2014. Seven Dimensions of Religion. Electronic Document. 6 March 2014.