Saturday, December 13, 2008

ornaments and organized religion

I just came home from a night at the Goggleworks, a community arts center in Reading, where I was both academically and pseudo-ecumenically educated. I participated in a hot glass blowing workshop in which I created an ornament to give to my dad for Christmas. Each year he asks for the same thing, that being Peace, and since he knows there's a slim chance of fulfilling the request in its entirety, he asks that the monetary gift be handmade. Well a girl can only make so many scarfs/hats/cards before she runs out of good ideas. Thus, the class. Actually, I love that he asks for that because it gives me an excuse to do something new and fun and not feel a lick of guilt for not studying.

After the class I wandered over to the main building to see what new independent film they were showing, and as luck would have it, Bill Maher's new movie Religious was playing. Since the class ran a little late, I missed the first half hour of it, but the part that I did see was enough to realize that though there were a few quick witted comments and partial truths, Maher wasn't openly looking for alternatives to his view on religion, or lack thereof. He pushed his own agenda with sounds bites and montages from people of various faiths and his diatribe at the end felt completely disjointed and hoaxy. I usually don't love Fox news, but in this case this review of the movie nailed it on the head. My critique: go for a few laughs if you've got nothing else to do, but expect nothing more than to be mildly entertained, and if you're super religious, possibly offended.

2 comments:

Becoming Supersonic said...

Cool! I can't wait to see the ornament! Sounds like so much fun. Yeah, once I saw the picture of good ol' Bill I knew who he was. Interesting.

Preethi said...

Jackie, I feel SO bad that I didn't respond sooner to your question about the Messiah! I hope you were able to find one to attend (and hopefully ours!).