Rev. Jeff Liebermann Reviews Bill Maher's 'Religulous' Mockumentary*

U*U seminarian Jeff Liebermann aka Jeff Lieberman attends Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago and is serving as Student Minister at the First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh through 2008. This self-described "religious atheist humanist dork" likes to review movies from time to time. A while back he did this wonderful review of my short U*U Tube video U*U COP. Today he has, not surprisingly, offered his review of Bill Maher's "mockumentary"* 'Religulous' on his 'uujeff's muse kennel and pizzatorium' blog. Interestingly enough, good chunks of Jeff Liebermann's review of Bill Maher's mockumentary* 'Religulous' apply quite nicely to U*U COP and my other U*U Tube videos with only minimal modification.

Here are some examples -

Robin Edgar's U*U Tube videos are not exactly what I expected but worth seeing. He makes no attempt to be comprehensive, cherry picking from among the wealth of anti-religious bigots in the U*U World as well as some more mainstream folk. The movies are often hilarious and just as often make U*Us wonder how our species has survived. He presents an even balance between examples of all too scary reality and the "are you kidding me?" moments.

Edgar asks most of the Theist 101 questions that believers consider when either rejecting the anti-religious bigotry of some "Humanist" U*Us, or attempting to understand anti-theist positions at all. Sometimes, he is just being Robin Edgar, a snarky comedian poking fun at the fringe and speaking out against real U*U hypocrisies and injustice. Other times, his questions strike at the heart of human need for what religion has to offer and how churches often pervert that desire to gain power and control.

Here is the comment that I submitted to the future Rev. Jeff Leibermann's "moderated" aka censored blog. I have corrected a couple of typos and may add some pertinent hyperlinks that were not in the comment as it was submitted -

"Sometimes, he is just being Bill Maher, a snarky comedian poking fun at the fringes and speaking out against perceived hypocrisies and injustice."

Did he poke fun at the *real* hypocrisies and injustices of the "tiny, declining, *fringe* religion" known as Unitarian*Universalism aka U*Uism Jeff?

Does this make me the Bill Maher of the U*U World?

"If you are a UU (which I assume from the chalice graphic), then no one should be ridiculing your belief in the Divine."

Tell that to the UUA's Ministerial Fellowship Committee who are on record as pretending that it is "within the appropriate guidelines of ministerial leadership" for an intolerant and abusive Atheist Supremacist "Humanist" U*U minister to mock and ridicule my monotheistic religious beliefs as being nothing but "silliness and fantasy", contemptuously dismiss the profound revelatory religious experience which informed these beliefs as "your psychotic experience" and angrily insist that I seek immediate psychiatric treatment, and to top it all off by falsely and maliciously labeling an inter-religious celebration of Creation that I had successfully organized as "your cult". . .

Comments

Anonymous said…
About a year ago I walked out of a Unitarian church (First U of St. Louis). Simply that, walked out. Didn't express animosity or vitriol that would probably have gotten ME kicked out (and my personality BACK THEN with respect to letting my fellow UU's know why I thought they were complete backsliders toward their own beliefs would likely have been equally vitriolic) but simply asked my wife if I could join her for an Oasis Episcopal service one Sunday.

I would never stoop to persuade anyone to leave their chosen religion or to do anything they don't want to do, but guess what? Best spiritual move I've ever made. No backsliders, no intolerance, no class boundary crap. And I'm not saying join the Episcopalian church. But, again, maybe just leave where you are and make a new discovery?? Take my comment as you will.

Jonathan Steinke
St. Louis