Cam Reacts to: "George Carlin - Religion is Bulshit" ("Comedy" Routine)

I have a feeling I'll be reviewing this man again...

From what I can tell, George Carlin is a comedian that isn’t very funny. His idea of funny is blatant insults, which are not the basis of comedy. A good comedian can make you feel bad without insulting your beliefs, whilst a bad comedian has to. What exactly does that mean? For example, a good comedian can make fun of religious practices, without insulting those that practice them, or the actual religion itself. I give this example, because this George Carlin clip I found is so profoundly idiotic, I just have to say something about it. For those wondering, yes, I am very aware that he is in fact dead, but he is deserving of criticism nonetheless, so, let’s get right into it!

As with last time, I will be leaving video references next to my comments so you know when to pause the video and come down to read. For those that can’t see the video, I’ll try to explain the situation the best I can in the descriptions below:

(PS) Believe it or not, to understand the point making, assume that God has been proven, without a doubt, to be real.

(0:08) – To start off, we can see that he thinks religion is bullshit, or at least, more BS than the business world is. I haven’t heard any arguments yet, so I guess we’ll see, but already, this is a pretty big hurdle to leap over.

(0:27) – Starting off strong, we have the profound statement, going along with the previous point, being that religion in its entirety, is the most bullshit thing in the world, that you have to physically be in awe at: “no contest”. As a devout Christian myself, I have a hard time believing this, so let’s wait and see what kind of evidence he has.

(0:56) – So, his first point, he says in his worst mocking voice, is that religion has convinced people that there is an “invisible man” in the sky, who wants us to not do things. Essentially, this is the hard-core atheist way of saying that: religion teaches (if you’re Christian) about an all-powerful creator that loves us and cares for us, and doesn’t want us to commit sins, such as murder, gluttony, and adultery, which I would hope are basic moral standards anyway. Not exactly seeing the problem with all this love and care for are well-being, but he has to win those non-believer points somehow. Let’s keep going.

(1:14) – As a Christian, I am insulted by this claim. First off, God doesn’t send people to Hell; you have to willingly go there. It is the place where there is no love or care, and is where TRUE evil thrives. Not just bank-rollers, and dictators, I’m talking about people that live and breathe evil. God loves all people equally, and infinitely, and in order to go to Hell, you have to want to go there. Then how does anyone go to Hell? That’s the exact point! If you have any ounce of love in you, or care, or passion, you won’t want to go there. That’s why Hell is Hell, and not just God’s prison: it has none of that.

(1:56) – I’m not exactly sure what the point of all that was, but I would hope that he knows that churches don’t run on magic juice. They need to pay power bills, water bills, and taxes on the property that they’re built on. They may not pay income tax, but they still need billions of dollars to run millions of churches.
(2:48) – The world is messed up, and it’s not Gods fault. When God made people, there were two conditions that he put in place that would make us different than the rest of the animals (think of these as the two basic laws of people). The first is “Intelligence”, meaning that we can store mass amounts of data, learn from our mistakes, and tell right from wrong. The second is “Free Will”, meaning that even though we know right from wrong, we can still act in the wrong way, and choose not to love God. God wants us to love him because we want to, and not because we have to. Getting back to the main point, God doesn’t cause harm, or damage to our society, we do, because we choose to act on greed, and selfishness before generosity and care.

(3:25) – He continues on with the last point, saying that God can’t be an actual God, but is just a man, because no actual God could screw things up so badly, much to the crowds delight. If you will allow me to repeat myself (because I have to with this guy), humans our responsible for our own decisions and God isn’t, since he doesn’t puppet people, or has absolute control. Would you blame the CEO for the actions of his employees? No, of course not, because the CEO can’t control the actions of his employees, he can only give him the rules of the company.

(3:40) – As he wraps up his first point, which only took him three minutes to relay, once again, if we are to believe basic religious teachings, God does “give a shit”. If he didn’t, there would be no religion. Following basic Christian beliefs, we can see that though most of God’s actions (even the ones often sighted as being evil, such as Noah’s Ark, and the exile of Adam and Eve), God historically does things out of care, including the ones mentioned prior, and the big one, sending Jesus down to earth.

(3:55) – Who says that all religious people are incompetent? Religious people have been running things for centuries, and I’d dare say that we’re doing pretty well so far. Could be much worse, even though it is classic nay speak to point out religion as the reason for a politician failing, or a business going down the drain, when it actually has nothing to do with that. Just thought I’d point it out.

(4:37) – So, just because you can’t see something that means it’s not there? So the ocean doesn’t have a surface, because I can’t see the bottom? It doesn’t make since to me, for most things really. Are you trying to be funny, because I can’t see the comedy anywhere (oh, sick burn!).

(4:54) – Since when have Christians ever set people on fire. Maybe some other religions, but the whole time, he’s been clearly targeting Christianity so that’s what we can assume he’s referring to. If we’re going to point fingers at anyone, it should be the Roman Empire, who is well known for burning the early Christians at the stake.

(5:07) – As someone who’s been there, I’ll admit, the clothes joke was pretty funny. Still, church is more than that, and why wouldn’t you where your nice clothes. Even of you’re wearing just a plain shirt, it still shows you care more than to just show up in your ripped jeans and Nike hoodie (I’ve seen it before).
(5:20) – God doesn’t say people are unworthy... did he say that to you? It would shock me, because then why would you be making all of these crazy statements? Isn’t that your physical proof? The only people that say others aren’t worthy of God are bigot priests, and before you say anything, not all Christian priests are bigots.

(5:45) – Ok, ok, fair enough. That was another pretty good joke. The one thing I will say is that God doesn’t grant vanity prayers. If he did that, everyone would win the lottery, and be rich, and famous, and the whole world would go to shit, because God doesn’t do that kind of thing, as God is all knowing, and plays out the world in the best way. Granting others vanity prayers would mess with the order of the world, and throw his plan off balance.

(6:48) – Wow, that was Meta.  For the next minute, George Carlin goes a full circle and comes back around to say pretty much exactly what I said in the previous point. Maybe this guy isn’t so bad, after all, (I’ve seen worse).

(7:15) – This is where it gets a bit rocky, and I can’t say much on the issue. The true power of prayer is up to debate, not only in Christian denominations, but in Jewish and Muslim ones as well, across the whole Abrahamic spectra. I would say more, but this is a topic for an editorial, maybe a Society Smash if I put it in with the future of religion, or something.

(8:45) – After a rant about Jo Pesci and horseshoes, he goes on to say that God is a superstition. Even if you’re an atheist, and don’t believe in God, that’s still not true. Surely, in its rawest form, one can tell the difference between a good luck charm, and an immortal person that grants wishes.

(9:05) – Again, say it’s part of the joke, whatever, but surely, surely, even a kindergartener can tell the difference between a nursery rhymes and the bible. One is a child’s story used to distract and entertain young children, and the other is a culturally significant book that encourages good moral practices, and helped to unite Europe, soon to be most of the world, under one common belief.

(9:28) – Looks like we got his finishing rant. There’s no God, not one, not two, no, nada, never, yada, yada, yada. The point is, wait –

(10:15) – I take that back. Finishing strong, he makes the bold dare that if, God is real, and he will strike him down on the stage. Obviously it doesn’t happen, but more obviously, George is too stupid to realize that his whole argument he made earlier (see 5:45 and 6:48) that God would do such a thing. Why would his waist time on your dumb vanity prayer?

So that’s it for this one guys. I stumbled upon this video, and knew it had to be made into a Cam Reacts. Hopefully you were informed, or were enlightened by at least some of the points I made, and I look forward to seeing you again later this week for more content.

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