The F word
Finally, one of the channels that we get here started playing Penn and Teller's show "Bullshit!". For some reason, the channel started playing the show at the beginning of the fourth season, at the episode "The Boy Scouts".
In this episode, Penn sure seemed angry about the fact that the Boy Scouts don't like gay people, and wanted them to accept gays in their ranks. I had understood that Penn is some kind of libertarian, but he seemed surprisingly hostile towards discrimination and freedom of association, two basic tenets of libertarianism. The show also presented in sympathetic light a mom who was suing the Boy Scouts to force them to end discrimination against gay people, and libertarians should find such use of state power to attack the freedom to discriminate especially deplorable. Fortunately, in the second half of this episode Penn brought this issue up and explained that the Boy Scouts get lots of money and goodies from the government, and hence should not be able to discriminate.
The episode also featured gay scouts and scoutmasters pleading for "tolerance" and "acceptance". And of course they were not only morally superior to all those boring straight normos, but also more skilled at scouting and model citizens, so it's hard to see what problem anybody could have against a gay scoutmaster taking teenage boys to camp. Besides, did you know that the American Boy Scouts were totally accepting towards homosexuals and atheists before the religious right took them over in the seventies? I sure as hell wouldn't have guessed that. But it's true, since if you look at the Boy Scout materials from the earlier eras, you don't find them containing any kind of bans of homosexual scoutmasters.
I guess I'll keep watching the show for at least a few more episodes, even though frankly it is too loud, pompous and gimmicky for my tastes. The exact same points could be made much more convincingly than just by cursing and swearing like an angry moonbat, if you have the right attitude and facts. An episode about Bible that I saw on YouTube a while ago (without really knowing that it is part of this series) was similarly weak, almost embarrassingly bad and missing every opportunity to make a point. These guys should perhaps learn to understand the piece of juristic wisdom that if facts are on your side you should pound the facts, and only if they are against you, you pound the table.
When I browsed the episode list and based on what I have seen and read them do earlier, Penn and Teller seem to be eager to attack taboo subjects that the mainstream media dares not touch, which is commendable. It especially warms my dark atheist heart that Penn and Teller are not afraid to call Christians stupid and bigoted fuckhead scum for hating gays, oppressing women, believing in their holy books instead of reason and science and wearing magic underpants that remind the wearer that the extramarital sex is bad. However, for some reason I couldn't find any episodes that skewered Islam the same way, or for that matter, any other Third World religion! What a strange and curious omission! But I am sure that we will be seeing this soon, perhaps even this season. After all, when we remember what mainstream Muslims think of gays, women and individual freedoms and liberties, a Penn and Teller episode about Islam would basically resemble shooting fish in a barrel.
In this episode, Penn sure seemed angry about the fact that the Boy Scouts don't like gay people, and wanted them to accept gays in their ranks. I had understood that Penn is some kind of libertarian, but he seemed surprisingly hostile towards discrimination and freedom of association, two basic tenets of libertarianism. The show also presented in sympathetic light a mom who was suing the Boy Scouts to force them to end discrimination against gay people, and libertarians should find such use of state power to attack the freedom to discriminate especially deplorable. Fortunately, in the second half of this episode Penn brought this issue up and explained that the Boy Scouts get lots of money and goodies from the government, and hence should not be able to discriminate.
The episode also featured gay scouts and scoutmasters pleading for "tolerance" and "acceptance". And of course they were not only morally superior to all those boring straight normos, but also more skilled at scouting and model citizens, so it's hard to see what problem anybody could have against a gay scoutmaster taking teenage boys to camp. Besides, did you know that the American Boy Scouts were totally accepting towards homosexuals and atheists before the religious right took them over in the seventies? I sure as hell wouldn't have guessed that. But it's true, since if you look at the Boy Scout materials from the earlier eras, you don't find them containing any kind of bans of homosexual scoutmasters.
I guess I'll keep watching the show for at least a few more episodes, even though frankly it is too loud, pompous and gimmicky for my tastes. The exact same points could be made much more convincingly than just by cursing and swearing like an angry moonbat, if you have the right attitude and facts. An episode about Bible that I saw on YouTube a while ago (without really knowing that it is part of this series) was similarly weak, almost embarrassingly bad and missing every opportunity to make a point. These guys should perhaps learn to understand the piece of juristic wisdom that if facts are on your side you should pound the facts, and only if they are against you, you pound the table.
When I browsed the episode list and based on what I have seen and read them do earlier, Penn and Teller seem to be eager to attack taboo subjects that the mainstream media dares not touch, which is commendable. It especially warms my dark atheist heart that Penn and Teller are not afraid to call Christians stupid and bigoted fuckhead scum for hating gays, oppressing women, believing in their holy books instead of reason and science and wearing magic underpants that remind the wearer that the extramarital sex is bad. However, for some reason I couldn't find any episodes that skewered Islam the same way, or for that matter, any other Third World religion! What a strange and curious omission! But I am sure that we will be seeing this soon, perhaps even this season. After all, when we remember what mainstream Muslims think of gays, women and individual freedoms and liberties, a Penn and Teller episode about Islam would basically resemble shooting fish in a barrel.
You know, I think that if Penn and Teller start going off about Islam or Shamanism etc, Temujin's offspring will come down on them like a horde of locusts!
Posted by beenaround | 11:44 PM
Umm, what? Exactly when did Sikhs become Christians? What am I missing?
Posted by Disgruntled | 12:39 AM
You are probably thinking of this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_garment_(Mormonism)
http://nowscape.com/mormon/undrwrmo-couple.jpg
Posted by Anonymous | 1:40 AM
Exactly when did Sikhs become Christians? What am I missing?
The apparent fact that when religion A forbids extramarital sex and commands wearing magic underpants, it is ridiculous and mockworthy, but when religion B does the same, we must apparently respect it.
I didn't see an episode titled "Sikhism" in the list of episodes.
Posted by Ilkka Kokkarinen | 7:49 AM
OK, I guess I see your point, though it was unclearly written in your original essay.
In any case, despite their use of Jesus Christ, the Mormons aren't really Christians. Joseph Smith sort of used Judaism and Christianity as a jumping off point for his own religion, which really is filled with new and weird innovations. It seems a lot of the Mormon secret temple rights were lifted from the Masons.
Posted by Disgruntled | 6:17 PM
I meant rites.
Posted by Disgruntled | 6:18 PM
I watched the first season of Bullshit and found it full of histrionics and very badly argued points. Really self-defeating as only libertarians can manage. Episodes taking on easy targets came off as propagandistic. It wasn't entertaining and no serious person would have his mind changed by it.
Posted by Brian | 2:22 AM