movielib

Showtime, 9:00pm CDT:
And I hope I get to ride with them.

Next week: Yoga, Tantric Sex etc.

das Monkey

From the description, this one could be silly. Refuting the literal interpretation of the Bible requires little effort, and refuting the allegorical interpretation is pointless. Hey, I'll still watch, but I'm not sure where they can go with this.

das

Red Dog

I can't wait.

whynotsmile

i'm interested in the yoga one. bikram yoga has radically changed my life for the better. lost a ton of weight, slept better, much more flexable and strong...should be interesting. great show

Red Dog

Just realized how ironic it is that this episode premieres on the National Day of Prayer.

Groucho

I can refute the entire show before it even airs. Any problems they find is due to the translation of the Bible they are using.

Penn and Teller, you have just been GrouchOWNED!

movielib

That may be so but tens upon tens (if not hundreds worldwide) of millions of people believe it.

I do fear the topic is way too broad to do a decent job with it.

Red Dog

Well heck - they could do a spinoff that runs for 50+ years with 22 eps/year titled Penn & Teller: Biblical Bullshit.

movielib

Now that would make one of the best DVD collections of all time.

ThatGuamGuy

But there are plenty of specifics which are open to debate. I mean, I think their examples of Noah and Moses are pretty silly (although I have heard religious people claim that there is physical proof of the latter, if not the former; the former would seem easy to disprove, given genetic technology), but the question of what proof there is of Jesus living could be an extremely interesting segment.

I expect this'll be one of their fish in a barrel episodes, like the UFO one, but it could have some good stuff in it.

Groucho

The real question is: who will get the "Enter this *******" line?

slop101

I wish I had Showtime to see this episode. The thing is though, if taken as a type of science or history textbook, the Bible is really easy to take apart. But that's not what it's pupose is. It's a book meant to show a person how to live their life, written by many different people. And a lot of it is not meant to be taken literally.

As long as they're at it, why don't they try to disprove Socrates or Aristotle - there's a lot less proof of their existance than of most of the things in the Bible.

Groucho

Based on the commericials, I'm guessing that's the exact point this episode will try to make.

movielib

What Groucho said. That's pretty much what I expect too.
There's ample proof beyond a reasonable doubt regarding Socrates and Aristotle (particularly Aristotle, that guy wrote up a storm and is mentioned by many, many others and he was the early tutor of Alexander the Great - undoubtedly quite real - for gosh sakes; I think although there's no reason to doubt Socrates lived, so much of what we "know" is what is reported by Plato and I don't trust that guy very much). That's also true of much that is in the Bible but also not true of much that's in there. Surely, David, Solomon and John the Baptist were real people (although like Socrates, much of what is said about them is doubtful, but there is sufficient extraBiblical evidence), while there is far less historical evidence outside the Bible for the existence of Moses or anyone before him or for "Daniel" which is a fable written hundreds of years after the supposed events to disguise the intentions of the writer, or for Jesus for that matter.

BizRodian

Yeah, there are still lots of people who dead on believe that Noah built a giant boat to house the thousands of thousands animals still around today, or the earth is for sure 6000 years old, and in fact all those thousands of exctinct species really just died because of the great flood.

movielib

I thought the show was better than I expected. I think for the most part it was respectfully and tastefully done. Much better than the Creationism show last year.

I thought using just the two experts on opposite sides was a good idea. They may not have been the best in the world but they were both certainly competent and they could get their points across without derision.

The people in the street was also done pretty well and was pretty low key. I did have to laugh though whenever someone said "Anything's possible."

One thing that disappointed me was the way they seemed to just give the main Josephus passage a free pass. That thing is as phony a forgery as a three dollar bill and does not deserve such kid glove treatment. P&T didn't have to come to the conclusion that Jesus didn't exist or anything like that and providing a solid argument for that is way beyond the scope of the little time they devoted to it (and also way beyond the scope of the full half hour even if they had chosen to talk about it the whole program) but please, the main Josephus passage is an obvious interpolation for many reasons. (The passage about James may be real, at least in part, but there are many problems with it also.)

All in all, not their best show but far from their worst and much better than I expected.

I have to add: I loved it when they used the "Actual Footage" captions with the scenes from some of the very old movies. That was just funny.

Mad Dawg

I thought it was okay. My biggest complaint: Only 30 minutes, of course. They could spend an entire 30 minutes simply focusing on the expunged gospels, for example, but they only received a nod. It just seemed like one hit and run after another.

Breakfast with Girls

kvrdave

Can't wait to see it on Saturday. Not much discussion on it, though. Suprises me.

aintnosin

Elvis didn't do no drugs?

Red Dog

Brilliant, although not long enough.

I loved the emphasis on the bullshit of the pick & choose method of morality. If you condemn homosexuality because of passages in the Bible then it seems to me that you should condemn everything that the Bible says is wrong. Be consistent.

I loved the analogy to potential stories about The King's life.

The 10 Commandments and government was almost a drop-in but they certainly scored there. That nut yelling outside the AL SCt the typical 'you're taking our religion away!!!!' Um no, you are free to practice it - see there is something called the free exercise clause. Taking religion and God out of government does not equal taking it away from the individual. You see these misleading statements in the Other Forum during religious arguments - see c-man always saying that you can't pray before a high school football game. Of course, he omits the key parts - a designated person can't lead a prayer over the PA system prior to a high school football game. An player on the field or fan in the stands is certainly still free to pray before the game.

It is funny that 4 in 5 Americans believed that the 10 Commandments monument should not have been removed. I would bet against 4 in 5 Americans knowing what the 10 Commandments say. Heck, I would bet against 4 in 5 Christian Americans knowing what the 10 Commandments say.

Groucho

I hope they expand this show to an hour next season. There's just too much content for most of these segments, and 30 minutes doesn't do the topics justice.

The show was good, but it's nothing none of us have never heard before. It won't change anybody's mind, but at least it was entertaining.

They were surprisingly kind to the pro-Bible guy. There weren't any clips of him staring off into space in-between interview questions like they enjoy showing to make the guests they don't agree with look stupid.

Interesting that they admitted to being "evangelical" atheists.

Red Dog

They were. He was actually one of the more reasonable god-boys I've ever heard.



Yeah - it is nothing I haven't heard before, but I think the format of the presentation could change minds. Sure, it will not change the mind of a hard core Christian who has been practicing 50 years. However, it could influence a teen or 20-something who casually practices religion.

Groucho

I've seen him before, interviewed for some of the various Bible shows they show on the History channel.

silentbob007

I like P&T (having seen the first season on DVD), but I"m not sure any show they do would "convince" me to live or act differently ... it's kind of like getting your news from the Daily Show .