Religulous (Bill Maher Documentary)

[Pangloss]

I agree with that, but really the point of a message film is not for the messenger to simply express their personal view, but rather to lend it tremendous additional power above and beyond the level of "one man's view". When you combine that with the flawed approach of appeal to ridicule then you have something that's more dangerous than a simple expression of opinion undermined by a logical fallacy.

 

We used to understand about great power and great responsibility. Today we supplant that understanding with negative, destructive concepts, like "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", or "if it isn't illegal it must be okay" (just ask Wall Street). A few posts back someone brought up George Bush, and perhaps his point is valid, but as I've said here before, the man did not rise to power in a vacuum. We put him there, sure as anything. Even those of us who didn't vote for him -- we all contributed to creating the environment in which he thrived. Would there be such a thing as "swiftboating" if people didn't buy into it? We made Karl Rove possible. We give guys like that the fuel they need to make their fires.

[iNow]

Perhaps people can gain more insight from Bill Maher's "New Rules" with which he ended his show "Real Time" this week.

 

This five minute clip talks about "New Rules for Sarah Palin and her Witch Doctor."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIcnAt4fYTw

[Pangloss]

What insight do you feel that provides?

[iNow]

Seems to support a few of the points you've been making.

[bascule]

I really think Maher's problem is the way religion is sometimes used to oppose specific political issues, such as abortion and scientific education. I happen to agree with his positions, but I think he's using a logical fallacy, and it's one that is causing more harm than good

 

Can you name a specific logical fallacy you believe Maher is making in the movie?

 

Doesn't that make him just like Ben Stein?

 

Expelled is full of logical fallacies, namely the good old argument from personal incredulity, not to mention everybody's favorite, the "reductio ad Hitlerum"

 

But more than that, he distorts facts, and argues against science. The movie is quite literally full of lies.

 

Expelled argument is that there's a systematic conspiracy to silence creationists and prevent them from being a part of the scientific discourse. He bases this entire claim on a single journal article written by Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute, which is a creationist think tank.

 

Meyer wrote an article which was published by a minor scientific journal with a circulation of about 300 people. The article did not undergo the typical peer review process and was simply published without review by the journal's editor, Robert Sternberg. Meyer's article thus became the first creationist paper ever published in a peer-reviewed journal, and thus became a talking point for the creationist movement. Sternberg was subsequently EXPELLED for not following basic scientific rigor like peer review and publishing an article which was frankly a giant crock of creationist bullsh*t.

 

This incident was massively expanded into a feature length film about how evolutionists are Nazis who are trying to suppress the truth about us really being made by God.

 

Zuh? These two films don't even compare. I can't ever imagine Expelled being well-received by anyone with a brain, however I can actually see Religious being well-received by less orthodox members of the religious community.

[Pangloss]

Seems to support a few of the points you've been making.

 

Indeed it did, thanks for passing it along. He made a really ugly argument, calling a black Christian pastor a "witch doctor". Wow. And he did that right after saying that if that happened to Obama the election would be over. And he wasn't cracking a joke, either.

 

 

Can you name a specific logical fallacy you believe Maher is making in the movie?

 

I haven't seen the movie, but the logical fallacy he's used in previous statements on this subject is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule

 

 

Expelled is full of logical fallacies, namely the good old argument from personal incredulity, not to mention everybody's favorite, the "reductio ad Hitlerum"

 

But more than that, he distorts facts, and argues against science. The movie is quite literally full of lies.

 

Yup. But somehow I don't really think it's your position that Expelled is more wrong than Religulous because it contains more logical fallacies. (grin)

 

I thought the rest of your points were fine, but let's take a look at this quote from iNow's link to a video from Bill Maher:

 

Folks this is our country. We gotta get it back from the forces of organized superstition. People like Bush and Palin simply cannot think clearly because they are in a big, scary brainwashing cult, and it warps their thinking so much that they're actually horny for the end of the world.

 

Pretty hard not to see the logical fallacies, and the outright harm, in that argument.

[Severian]

Anything which cannot be scientifically proven (that is tested with the scientific method) is opinion. From a scientific point of view, no opinion is better than any other.

 

From a societal point of view, some opinions are better than others because they encourage or discourage the sort of society we want to live in. However, everyone has a different view of the society we want to live in, so what opinion one supports is somewhat arbitrary. I am sure the society I would like to live in is quite different from that Pangloss, iNow or any other poster would want to live in.

 

But I hope we would all agree that our society would be a better place if we were all a bit more tolerant of each other's opinions. We can discuss our opinions and encourage friendly argument on their relative merits, but ridicule is simply not constructive, irrespective of which opinion it is directed at.

 

But of course, that is just my opinion...

[iNow]

He made a really ugly argument, calling a black Christian pastor a "witch doctor". Wow. And he did that right after saying that if that happened to Obama the election would be over. And he wasn't cracking a joke, either.

I guess I'm not perceiving the clip the same way you are. He called him a witch doctor because he claimed to be casting out witches from Palin, not because he had dark skin.

 

 

 

 

I haven't seen the movie, but the logical fallacy he's used in previous statements on this subject is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule

I tried to cover this above briefly, but it's only appeal to ridicule if that is the only source of support for your argument.

 

Example - Oranges taste like chicken. I know this because if you disagree you're a retarded moron.

 

That's not what Maher is doing. He may be resorting to ridicule, but the argument he's making does not hinge on said ridicule.

 

Also, you cannot really have a "tone" of appeal to ridicule, which is why Bascule has asked you to cite specific examples (which we all understand you are not able to do since you've not seen the movie).

 

 

 

...let's take a look at this quote from iNow's link to a video from Bill Maher:

 

Folks this is our country. We gotta get it back from the forces of organized superstition. People like Bush and Palin simply cannot think clearly because they are in a big, scary brainwashing cult, and it warps their thinking so much that they're actually horny for the end of the world.

 

Pretty hard not to see the logical fallacies, and the outright harm, in that argument.

 

I have to ask... Is it still somehow a logical fallacy even if the comments being made are true and accurate?

Edited October 7, 2008 by iNow
multiple post merged

[ParanoiA]

Saying they're horny for the end of the world is just like them saying that liberals like to kill unborn babies. They're both rhetorical misrepresentations that polarize your opponent - an utterly stupid tactic when you're trying to change hearts and minds; and pathetic coming from supposed "intellectually enlightened" people who place themselves above the traditional conservative kool-aid drinking religious superstitious.

 

This is what has always rubbed me the wrong way about those who trash religion. For some reason, no one can do it without being an absolute hypocrite. They go on and on about how simple minded and silly it is to believe in god, while they demonstrate an atrocious level of oversimplification and total lack of depth in doing it.

 

Maher suffers what all anti-religios suffer: emotive intellectual destruction. They let their emotions ruin their arguments and piss away opportunity after opportunity to actually make a thoughtful point and disarm the opposition.

[Pangloss]

I guess I'm not perceiving the clip the same way you are. He called him a witch doctor because he claimed to be casting out witches from Palin, not because he had dark skin.

 

That doesn't really make any sense, guy. Not only is it obviously mixing up some pretty familiar cultural metaphors, it's also an obvious play on stereotypes.

 

 

That's not what Maher is doing. He may be resorting to ridicule, but the argument he's making does not hinge on said ridicule.

 

Sure, and it's an argument I happen to agree with. But this just gets back to the point we discussed earlier about the damage caused by his approach, which I feel is more important than the actual point he's trying to make, however accurate it may happen to be.

 

We have a difference of opinion, obviously. You feel the ends justify the means, and those ends, however wrong, can be casually dismissed as you've done above, because the larger truth is more important.

 

I don't. In fact I feel just the opposite. Not only do the ends not justify the means, the means are actually the greater problem.

 

 

I have to ask... Is it still somehow a logical fallacy even if the comments being made are true and accurate?

 

Certainly it is, and the danger is there regardless of the accuracy.

 

How much value do you think there would be in having a thread on our Politics forum to discuss the Berg v Obama case? That's the federal lawsuit that accuses Obama of not being a US citizen on the basis that his birth certificate is a forgery. Nothing in the basic premise of the argument is false, because they cleverly phrase everything on a factual basis, so it meets your "true and accurate" requirement. But it's a logical fallacy to run around telling people "well if Obama is a US citizen then why doesn't he simply produce his passport and prove it?" AND it would be damaging and detrimental to bring it into the national debate, because that lends it legitimacy and value in the public eye. That's why most media outlets are not actively reporting it, though you can bet their bottom dollar they're following it, "just in case". That's a responsible approach, IMO.

 

But getting back to the point, yes you can propound truth and do so in a dangerous and detrimental manner, absolutely you can. That's my entire point.

 

Saying they're horny for the end of the world is just like them saying that liberals like to kill unborn babies. They're both rhetorical misrepresentations that polarize your opponent - an utterly stupid tactic when you're trying to change hearts and minds; and pathetic coming from supposed "intellectually enlightened" people who place themselves above the traditional conservative kool-aid drinking religious superstitious.

 

This is what has always rubbed me the wrong way about those who trash religion. For some reason, no one can do it without being an absolute hypocrite. They go on and on about how simple minded and silly it is to believe in god, while they demonstrate an atrocious level of oversimplification and total lack of depth in doing it.

 

Maher suffers what all anti-religios suffer: emotive intellectual destruction. They let their emotions ruin their arguments and piss away opportunity after opportunity to actually make a thoughtful point and disarm the opposition.

 

Exactly, that's the harm. Exaggerating the truth just further separates people. Is it any wonder religious people don't reach out and embrace science, when science constantly gives the appearance of hating them?

[bascule]

I haven't seen the movie, but the logical fallacy he's used in previous statements on this subject is this one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_ridicule

 

Perhaps you should see the movie first before criticizing it. So far it seems like all your criticisms are based on probabilities of what it might be based on Maher's opinions rather than anything that's actually in the movie.

 

Yup. But somehow I don't really think it's your position that Expelled is more wrong than Religulous because it contains more logical fallacies. (grin)

 

No, I was pointing out Expelled invoked Godwin's Law by comparing belief in evolution to Nazism. They lose the argument by default, thus spoketh the Internet.

 

I thought the rest of your points were fine, but let's take a look at this quote from iNow's link to a video from Bill Maher

 

Okay, that's great, but again it's not in the movie. Gratuitous comparisons between evolutionists and Nazis were actually in Expelled.

 

What if Maher decided to compare religious people to Nazis in Religulous? Wouldn't there be "outright harm" in that?

[Pangloss]

Okay, that's great, but again it's not in the movie. Gratuitous comparisons between evolutionists and Nazis were actually in Expelled.

 

What if Maher decided to compare religious people to Nazis in Religulous? Wouldn't there be "outright harm" in that?

 

Of course! So then we agree that if the movie uses appeal to ridicule then it's wrong to do so, and that it causes harm. Great!

[bascule]

Of course! So then we agree that if the movie uses appeal to ridicule then it's wrong to do so, and that it causes harm. Great!

 

Okay, but none of your complaints were about the movie, they were about Maher himself. That's called an ad hominem...

 

When I'm talking about Expelled, I'm not talking about things Kevin Miller or Ben Stein did outside the context of the film. I'm talking about Expelled itself.

[Mr Skeptic]

Yes, what is the point in starting a discussion about a movie you have never seen nor read the transcript of, etc? I mean, if you were asking people's opinions, sure, but to go telling people about the movie you haven't seen seems a bit silly.

[john5746]

Good point, but to be fair, I decided not to watch expelled based on the commercials and what I had heard was in the movie. I did not want any money to go towards that venture. After seeing more of it, I don't even want to watch it for free.

[ParanoiA]

I haven't seen any of Expelled outside of the commercials and have no plans to. I can't imagine being bored enough to actually watch that voluntarily.

[Pangloss]

Good point, but to be fair, I decided not to watch expelled based on the commercials and what I had heard was in the movie. I did not want any money to go towards that venture. After seeing more of it, I don't even want to watch it for free.

 

Indeed that would certainly seem to run counter to the notion that you can't ask questions about a movie you haven't seen yet.

[Mr Skeptic]

Indeed that would certainly seem to run counter to the notion that you can't ask questions about a movie you haven't seen yet.

 

It is all right and good to ask questions about things you don't know. But it is not good to go about stating facts about things you don't know. Also, keep in mind that some questions are also statements of fact.

[Pangloss]

Okay, but none of your complaints were about the movie, they were about Maher himself. That's called an ad hominem...

 

Yeah, this whole thread I've been complaining about his funny accent and his lack of hair. It's weird how long it's taken everyone to catch on to me.

 

No, obviously I'm commenting on Bill Maher's position on religion, which he has put out there for criticism. I'm not attacking Maher personally, and in fact I think he's a very funny comedian and probably a real fun guy to know. There's no ad hominem in my posts in this thread. None whatsoever.

 

 

When I'm talking about Expelled, I'm not talking about things Kevin Miller or Ben Stein did outside the context of the film. I'm talking about Expelled itself.

 

And I'm talking about arguments about religion Bill Maher has made as recently as Friday. Certainly it's possible that it's just a big coincidence that he just released a movie on the exact same subject. Why yes, you're right, he may not appeal to ridicule at all, it could be a straightforward documentary with no attempt at humor whatsoever.

[bascule]

And I'm talking about arguments about religion Bill Maher has made as recently as Friday.

 

But again, those are comments made by Bill Maher outside the scope of the movie. I thought this was supposed to be a thread about Religulous, not Bill Maher in general.

[john5746]

Watched the movie today - only one small theater in my area ran it. Great movie, but the last 5 minutes was far too serious and unsupported by the rest of the movie.

[ParanoiA]

But again, those are comments made by Bill Maher outside the scope of the movie. I thought this was supposed to be a thread about Religulous, not Bill Maher in general.

 

Ok, so if Rush Limbaugh comes out with a "movie" on Global Warming, you're not going to comment on its credibility or content based on his reputation right? You're going to patiently wait until you've seen it before even remotely suggesting it could be tainted with his previous outspoken tendencies? After all, it would be a movie on GW, not Rush...

[Mr Skeptic]

I would say that it, like everything else he does, is likely full of bias and even outright lie. Unless someone gave evidence otherwise, I would not consider it worth my time to look at it. Of course, I would not consider that as any kind of proof that the movie was worthless.

[iNow]

Ok, so if Rush Limbaugh comes out with a "movie" on Global Warming, you're not going to comment on its credibility or content based on his reputation right?

Does Bill Maher have a reputation for lies, spin, and hypocrisy? If he does, then it would be a valid comparison.

[ParanoiA]

Does Bill Maher have a reputation for lies, spin, and hypocrisy? If he does, then it would be a valid comparison.

 

No, it's already a valid comparison no matter who I pick. It's simply applying a person's reputation to expectation. Maher has a reputation and it's a perfectly valid expectation. I used Rush Limbaugh as an example because he's a polarized figure and none of you would keep your proverbials mouths shut about it regardless if you ever watched his "movie". In other words, no, it's not out of the question to suspect a person's future actions based on their reputation.