Julia Sweeney - 2017 National Convention

now before I introduce the next act I need a little bit of help here this is the New York Times Magazine from this Sunday and on the crossword page I'm having trouble with one of these clues it's a one two three four five it's a five letter seven across clue right at the top and the clue is comic Sweeney doesn't it can anybody help me out with that Julie uh oh there you go you know you've made it when the writers of The New York Times magazines assume that every readers gonna know who comic Sweeney is Julia Sweeney of course is our next our next act I make it my note you've seen her on Saturday Night Live for many years you've seen her in the movies you seen her in Sex in the City Julia says in her play about letting go of goddess she when she was a young girl she wanted to be a nun well she played a nun in Sex in the City of even eva ever seen that episode is pretty hilarious there she's an author if it's not one thing it's your mother she's very do we have those books here do we have that book well we have the DVD of it okay she's also a playwright and she she's written three one-woman monologue plays God said ha in the family way and letting go of God in which he tells her hilarious story of how she let go of God so without any more comments Julia Sweeney okay oh my god I'm having so much fun here I love this convention so much I really am vowing never to miss it again ever ever it's so important and so great so before I get into the material I prepared for you um I just wanted to make some comments one - Roy Zimmerman who's so great I actually wish you weren't I wish I was person you weren't the end but I do have a comment about um and maybe a complaint about your Rift Valley songs because um just in the last couple months my husband Michael and daughter Mulan and I did our 23andme I wanted to do the 23andme and find out about our genealogy and my husband said well why because we did the National Geographic one and we're all we're not all biologically related my husband's Jewish I'm Irish Northern European and our daughters Chinese and we did the National Geographic thing and it was you know was just what we thought it was like no surprises and so he said why do you want to do the 23andme and I said because I want confirmation that I'm in the and earth all and he said why would you say that which is something he says to me a lot why would you say that sometimes it's like would you say that sometimes it's like why would you say that and I said because I just feel like I'm when I ant neanderthal I mean just look at me don't I seem like a Neanderthal and he was like what and I go when they have those pictures of Neanderthal families that just seems like very familiar it just seems like all those are my people and um I really like the cold I'm really good on the cold and I just feel it he's like oh that's ridiculous okay so then we do it and we get the information back my computer this is Julia Sweeney you are in the top 2% of all the people who've done 23andme that has Neanderthal ancestry [Applause] so now I go around the house going it was funny to them for a day but anyway now I feel like you can't diss the Neanderthals because here I am alright ok ok Annie Laurie do you have some picture in your office that is aging I don't understand how you can look so beautiful year after year she is so gorgeous I think there's something I think there's some witchcraft going on there alright ok oh god Kimberly feels so great so I was only here today because I had to do another talk last night in Columbus Ohio so I only came this morning so I only saw four talks but um I loved Kimberly I loved your talk so much and I feel like I'm kind of going through the same thing like I went through my atheist time I am an atheist I don't expect that to change but then I got tired of saying atheist all the time when people asked me about myself because I felt like that just tells so little about me that just tells you about one tiny thing that I think and I felt like I wanted to be more part of a community group and I wanted to give more back to the community so I ended up joining the Unitarian Church of Evanston which is near me and they're mostly atheist and I'm although much less atheist than I expected and and it's been this really really mostly great experience I got to be part of this group that mentored a Syrian family that I fell in love with and the little thing that I was inspired to tell you about about it is that um so it was just about a year ago and because I had a minivan I went to the airport and in the group that we prepared this apartment and all this stuff and I picked them up and it's a parents who are in their late 40s and they have four kids a 24 year old a 22 year old a 19 year old and a 15 year old and they'd been in this Turkish refugee camp for a few years and I just fell so hard in love with them on the way back like they were so loving with each other and laughing and and they were always saying of course inshallah ah and then I and I thought oh I I didn't even know how I felt about hearing that so often and and then only after so then I got to really got to know this family I mean really I've spent like a couple days visiting them a week probably for the last year and then finally I told them that I cuz I they said they kept saying well they learned more English and then they were saying you know Angela ah you know if God wills it they were saying it so much and then so finally I said you know I just have to say dad um you know I'm an atheist and so when you say Angela to me that's great but to me it's like if fate allows or you know I just I just take it this different way and they actually were really great about it um but then only recently in the last month actually the youngest son O'Day who I've really gotten to know I took him to guitar classes I really love this family he started so the other women who were in the group who are mentoring this Syrian family are all Christian and I didn't really know that when we put ourselves together cuz I just I just thought that all the Unitarians were atheists but anyway ok so they're Christian so that's ok ok we're helping people okay that's fine and so that day says he wanted me to watch these videos about becoming a Muslim and and I said oh you know oh god like oh oh so I watched a couple of them and I go you know I'm really you know I'm pretty set pretty set um in my beliefs I really don't think I'm gonna become a Muslim and of course they have no idea that I've done this show letting go of God or then I go to these conventions and all this I was like I'm really so much farther than you think but anyway um he said to me goes Oh Julia though but the other women in the group were helping this day already are Christian but you are nothing you're so close and I realized to him it was like I didn't have a boyfriend like our boyfriend anyway I just was inspired to tell you that by Kimberly um oh and then Brant oh my god he was so great and he gave me this necklace and I just love him and I'm gonna go visit him at the reservation and that was so great that's all I have to say about that okay Michelle Goldberg I'd loved her for so long every time she's on MSNBC talking to Chris Hayes I go crazy and yell into the air so to be able to see her here was such a great thing okay this is what I have to ask her will you please write a book a prescient book about the secular movement in the United States that's happening right now and maybe the FFRF is really like just the toe of the elephant and you can't see the entire rest of the elephant but you write this fantastic prescient book about secular America and then in 11 years we take over okay okay and I have nothing to say about Steven Pinker except that I love him in every book he writes just blows my mind and changes everything even even your sense of style book about grammar changed my life like Steven Pinker can't stop rocking my world every time you write something okay that's my comments now I'm getting to the meat of my talk which is very I'm a little worried about it because um I kind of just gave myself this assignment and I told him he worried that I was gonna do this and I really don't know if this is something that will be of interest to you and it might just be depressing but let's just see how it goes and I can run off stage or answer questions if it starts going south okay so this was the this is what the assignment I gave myself I thought I am going to watch financially successful religious movies that were released in the last year and give you you know my opinion of them let you know the lay of the land and I realized right away that my task was not so easy as that and by the way I'm a huge movie person that's my hobby and my love and my everything I watched probably five films a week I loved the movies so to have to stop my movie going love affair to watch these Christian movies was a sacrifice people but I did it for you um but I first had to think okay well what does that mean religious movie which was a really interesting thing to think about because the horror genre is enormous and you know that's really like religious movies like you have to buy into a lot of stuff for a lot of those films and I hate horror films and I just thought I'm ruling out horror films but there's a film that came out this year called Annabelle creation it cost fifteen million dollars and it's made 100 million dollars at the box office domestically so it's hugely successful and it's all about Adam demonically possessed doll and there was another it's a prequel of another which was also a prequel called Annabelle in 2014 and so I was thinking the Catholic Church must be so embarrassed about these horror films that come out that kind of really take their ideology to the most ridiculous extent what does the Catholic Church really have to say about these horror films so just I just took Annabelle creation didn't watch it but saw that it was hugely financially successful and I thought okay I'm just gonna see what the Catholic have to say about it and I immediately found an article but this is just I guess 20th 2017 recently in the National Catholic Register which is a mainstream Catholic publication and it was an interview with a priest about what he thought about Annabelle creation and I just want to read part of it to you okay.what children read what they see on the screen can inspire them toward greater faithfulness conversely it can lead them into the sordid world of the occult even opening them to demonic possession father Robert a priest for more than ten years and an experienced Exorcist so I'm just reading this going what knows firsthand the unintended consequences when children or adults open the door to demonic activity you guys this is like a mainstream Catholic publication often times he says demonic possession begins because gets kids get curious after reading books like say Harry Potter an important part of father Roberts ministry is training other priests at the Vatican's official exorcism Institute of America from across the country and around the world I just have to say I am this kind of almost Catholic apologist because I lost my faith I'm an atheist and I was Catholic but I liked being Catholic so people always think I have some big beef against the Catholic Church and I was saying now and I'm always saying how the Catholics aren't so bad then they have to read this okay from across the country and around the world Catholic priests come to the Institute to learn the secrets of this ancient rite so that they too can exorcise demons and evil spirits is Anabelle creation faithful to church teachings this woman asked father Robert father Robert explained that the devil will only go where he is invited he talked of two cases he knew of personally in which two young women not realizing the gravity of their request had invited any spiritual being to help them the consequence was that they exhibited symptoms of demonic possession and then required an exorcism yeah and then he goes on and then the publication goes on to tell you the five signs of demonic possession and all I kept thinking about will talk about the witch trials I just kept thinking about foreigners when knowledge information just all those things in your head okay here's the five signs of demonic possession one hidden knowledge if a person has knowledge they should not have had that's just a sign of demonic possession okay two languages speaking in an unfamiliar language three superhuman strength father Robert said he knew of a five foot four girl who's a hundred and ten pounds who through five large men off of her who were trying to hold her down during an exorcism oh my god five extreme aversion to the sacred such as an unwillingness to go to church yes and five levitation father Robert had personal knowledge of a case in Louisiana this year in which a person was seated in a chair and was able to levitate and proceeded down the hall away from the priest Wow okay I can't believe they allow that stuff I mean well I guess I can okay that brings me okay you guys I know you're looking to laugh but I'm just need to rant to you okay do you guys know about Bill Donohue the guy who's the head of the Catholic League okay I did not realize until I started researching cuz then I was like on my Catholic thing so I started going around the web looking at stuff and I hate this guy so much I mean okay he has so much power he says he has 350 thousand followers but I think that's just like who give their email address to him I mean I don't think it's really members because he's really funded by the Heritage Foundation found a ssin um he's actually kind of responsible for Trump being in office it's true and that is because well first of all let me just tell you about this guy he sided with al Qaeda with the attack on the Charlie headbow attack in Paris because he said that people should not insult religious figures and if they do so murder is justified he thinks that marriage marriage is not about love or making feel happy but about reproduction which really made me laugh because and when I say laugh I mean cry laugh hard laugh okay um I've been married twice that's right the second one stuck but the first time I got married I got married in the Catholic Church and we had to go to these to this priest and we had to do these counseling sessions with this priest and I remember my first husband Steve and I went and the priest said now do you know what marriage is the purpose of marriage just like this long pause and then Steve said and he said no it's about having children and I said well what if you can't have children and he said well then it's not really a marriage yeah that's what he said to us and yet I still got married which I don't understand that okay he thinks that the reports of priests sexual abuse is wildly overblown and that there's way more sexual abuse among secular people and that secular liberals are just trying to put a spotlight on the priests and it's all unfair so that when when Anthony Weiner did had his final picture in the paper that showed the picture that he sent to the girl that had his four-year-old son Jordan in it it was Bill Donohue who called the New York City administration for Children Services and urged them to investigate Weiner and and investigate him for sexually you know abusing his son basically and New York City agreed to do the investigation they sent it to the FBI and then on October 3rd last year that's when the FBI agents went in and got weiners computer and that's when they found those emails I mean I'm really not doing a comedy said I'm just telling you you should hate more okay so let's get back to the movies and my segue with that with Bill Donohue is that he loved the passion of the christ' and one thing I really realized at that movie Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ which made so much more money than anyone ever thought which is really like a violent porn film it's like Christians should hate this movie it's like two hours of Jesus being scourged and one minute of Jesus saying turn the other cheek or something and then two hours of just out-and-out violence and yet it became this huge popular movie at churches and that's what kind of started I learned this movement of churches sort of and the Hollywood film industry sort of coming together and making these films and so the first thing I saw was hacksaw bridge which some of you might have seen and actually this is considered one of the mainstream you know Christian films that made a lot of money and it's by Mel Gibson so Mel Gibson obviously has some thing about violence horrible flesh burning legs being torn off beating grenades blowing up people's insides he loves that kind of violence but he likes to center it on a main character who's a pacifist so that was like the same thing with Jesus and that's exactly what he did with that courage so I started reading about the real guy so the real guy Desmond das he was a Seventh day Adventist and actually he's soul is worthy of a film I mean he's he's a really interesting case because he was a pacifist but he didn't think he was a conscientious objector he was a conscientious obligor or something like that he called them like he would go he wanted to be a medic at the front but he refused to touch a gun and um and he was I think maybe a little touched and I and I and I think that he brought up a lot of complicated things in the military that Mel Gibson a little bit explorers but nothing compared to the real story and it's almost like Mel Gibson wants to have it both ways he wants to be able to glorify this pacifist but then he wants to get all the blood and guts into it but in this movie so Desmond das he's not gonna touch a gun he's only gonna save people and at one point he goes up to a guy who's had his legs blown off he puts him on a stretcher and he's carrying the stretcher on his back through the you know the gunfire and the guy on the stretcher who's had his legs blown off picks up a machine gun and start mowing down Japanese servicemen behind him it's that kind of movie and I just want to say the movie costs 40 million dollars and it's made 175 million dollars so far and let me see okay here's the thing this is like the kind of thing that going down this rabbit hole I learned is that often the real story is actually really interested in complicated and they don't use it for example this guy doesn't exhaust this is the true story he finally Oh a grenade is thrown towards him and his fellow soldiers and he throws himself on the grenade he gets all this shrapnel all over his body on his lower body he gets put on a stretcher himself and as they're taking him on the stretcher he sees a guy who's in worse shape than him he throws him off the stretcher he elbows his way over to the guy who's actually more wounded than him insist that that guy get on the stretcher and then stays there and then is shot by a Japanese sniper that's actually the real story but Mel Gibson doesn't tell that part of it because he when he was interviewed he said oh that's just too much that's just too much he just wanted yeah and yet I feel like he just missed the greatest part of the story okay Oh aren't you so happy to be educated by this at the end of this day okay so there's basically what I learned is there's there's basically two big producers in Hollywood of Christian films and one is the kind of down and dirty cheap ones and one is the main studio big ones so the down-and-dirty ones are all made by this place called pure flix and the first one that came out is God's not dead now how many of you have seen God's not dead oh so there's some of you okay okay if you want to be depressed / totally entertained you should rent God's not dead so God's not dead is all about this professor who's sort of like Richard Dawkins except it's not at all true Dawkins and this young kid goes to college and he takes philosophy 101 and the teacher on the first day says you've got to sign a paper saying that God is dead because God is dead and I'm not even gonna teach this class unless you accept that God is dead and everyone in the class cheapest Lee's writes God is dead except for this one kid who says I can't sign that paper and not only that I'm going to debate you in three debates and prove to you that God is not dead and though and the way of course all the atheists in the movie there's three main atheists in the movie and they're all showed as such crazy God hating villains like every single one of them isn't really an atheist they're just mad at God so for example the professor at one point the student says why do you hate God so much and the professor says because they took everything away from me that I loved oh my god and then other atheist is this horrible he just cares about making money and he's mean to his girlfriend when she tells him that she has cancer he dumps her right during the same dinner because he's an atheist that's what they do and his mother has Alzheimer's and was a Christian but he doesn't take care of his mother even though you know she needs care and there's this great scene where he goes to his mother and she's sort of blankly watching the TV screen that's just like you know sand on the TV screen and he says mom I'm an atheist and you know I just love to make money and you prayed and this is the kind of writing I just want to say you've read and believed your whole life and you've never done anything wrong and you're the nicest person I know and I'm the meanest angriest person I know you know how mean angry people are always just making that announcement and you know you have dementia but my life is perfect why don't you explain that to me and then his mother suddenly comes out of her dementia for this one moment you know how that happens with people with dementia when there's suddenly click it and she says sometimes the devil allows people to live a life of trouble cuz he doesn't want him to turning to God your sin is like a jail cell except it's nice and comfy and there doesn't seem to be any need to leave the doors wide open till one day time runs out the cell door slams shut and suddenly it's too late and then she turns to him and says excuse me who are you anyway okay you guys this movie was made for two million dollars and it's made 140 million dollars and it actually started this whole company pure flicks that now has made many many of these films and let me just say the overall point of all these Pierce Leagues films is not even about Christianity it that no one ever really talks about what it means to be a Christian or any difficulty being a Christian besides saying I love Jesus and that's at the end of it and your life's great it's really all about vilifying secularists it's all about saying that secularists are terrible people that's the whole point of the movie okay so then because that was so popular they had to make God's not dead too I thought at least it could be T oh oh or something like that no it's just God's not dead - and that was made for five million it's so far made 23 million not as much but still pretty good return honey okay an e-learning dan you might be in the wrong business alright no they're not okay so God my two gods rented to Stars Melissa Joan Hart she's a teacher of history in a public school and she tries to keep her Christianity to herself and her father is played by Pat Boone I'm not kidding and in her class they're talking about non-violence violent resistance and she's talking about MLK and Gandhi and then a girl in the class whose parents are atheists which means that their son died six months before and they had no feelings about it that's how you can tell and she raises her hand and says wasn't Jesus a pacifist and Melissa Joan Hart goes you can tell she knows she's not supposed to mention Jesus's name in the public school she says according to the writers of the Bible Jesus did say love your enemies and all of a sudden of course she's broken the rules she's mentioned Jesus and she's hauled before the school board and they say you know you're not supposed to mention Jesus in a public school and she says but I was asked a question and I was just teaching history and yes historical they followed him and they said we need you to sign a statement saying I've made a horrible mistake and she says I'd rather she has a statement like I'd rather be rather be fight with God against the world and be with world okay then then the girl's parents the girl who asked the question they say I can't believe they said the word Jesus in your history class we're going to get the ACLU on this case and make millions of dollars suing the school and now you're gonna get into an Ivy League school daughter because you're gonna be a famous girl who had this case about the horrible teacher who said Jesus and Pat Boone has so then Melissa Joan Hart goes home to her father Pat Boone who says things that's the thing about atheism they take away the pain they don't take away the pain they just take away although oh this is my favorite Pat Boone quote in the Hall of God it's not dead - they seem to forget the most basic human right of all is the right to know Jesus that's like really that's the most basic human right of all but you guys this is what we're up against okay Oh God Oh and then it's so funny cuz the Atheist parents just don't care about their son that's tight they like our son died six months ago we boxed off his his stuff daughter um The Salvation Army is coming over soon can you just give them all this stuff that you know that your brother had and she's like okay and then the Salvation Army comes and they find a Bible in the son's room he was like okay thanks for laughing cuz these they're just gonna get worse okay and you know when it just gets unbearable I'm gonna stop all right okay the next pure flix movie is making so much money old-fashioned Oh God old-fashioned it's about a Christian carpenter who runs an antique shop in it down who used to be wild in college and in fact he made girls gone wild videos and now he just is the carpenter in the town because he's accepted Jesus into his heart and this girl this free-spirited girl he just gets in a car and drive so the gas runs out that's somebody no rules in her life she she runs at a gas near his place and they have an attraction and he tells her that he oh she asked him she rents an apartment above his antique store and she needs something fixed and then he says I'm sorry I can't come in I have a I've got a personal rule where I'm never in a room alone with a woman I'm not married to thinking oh my god because you're so horrible just think someone if you were alone with them um and she goes oh so you're only in the room with your wife and he goes well I'm not married and then that starts this romance between them where he reveals himself to be the most screwed-up controlling person in the world and he takes her to a preacher and he makes them do workbooks about if they will be compatible together before they can go on a date and it's so insufferable and this movie opened against Fifty Shades of Grey which I have to say you know it is kind of smart it is true I mean there's Hollywood comes out with a lot of crass sexual stuff it really isn't for everyone I mean not just because if people are Christian or prudish about it but like like for me Fifty Shades of Grey is a horrific film and it just it just breaks my heart that there isn't other options out there that are better options than those like it's it's really got to be 50 shades of grey or this crazy wacko Christian guy moving okay then I watched the case for Christ the Lee Strobel story so I read that book when I was actually going through my personal faith journey I read least herbals book the case for Christ which sold a zillion copies where he's a Chicago reporter who's trying to prove God doesn't exist but realize and then he wrote a book and I've sold millions of copies and now there's this movie and it didn't do as well it costs three million it only made seventeen million at the box office and he's got great 80s kind of long a share the guy who plays Lee Strobel and he's a rising star at the Chicago Tribune and then his daughter chokes on something at a restaurant and the woman who knows how to do the Heimlich remover at a restaurant which is a miracle someone would know how to do the Heimlich remover at a maneuver at a restaurant and saves his daughter's life then his wife becomes a Christian because of that because then the woman who saves the girl's life he says thank you and she goes you know Jesus sent me here I was going to Applebee's but I came here and saved your daughter cuz Jesus knew I had to do the hard work maneuver so then the wife becomes a Christian least Robles character very upset about his wife becoming a Christian and he decides to write a story for the Chicago Tribune where he's gonna prove there is no god but then he gets some great advice from his the reporter who's above him like his managing editor he says I don't even know what angle to come at it from to prove there is no God how can I do it and then my wife will read my article and she'll realize there is no God and his editor says I'll tell you what you need to do all you need to do is debunk the resurrection and it will all fall like a house of cards and so then he starts investigating the resurrection which to him he keeps trying to prove it didn't happen but then he keeps finding out it did by going to people like Faye Dunaway playing a important psychologist at a university who what I think is so hilarious is she says she says something like he goes how can the Gospels be true they contradict themselves the four Gospels so obviously they're not true and she says something like you know witnesses when they give testimony are always contradicting there so the very fact that the Gospels contradict each other proves they're true and then he goes oh and then he goes to leave and then she stops him and says can I ask you a question do you have daddy issues and he's like my father also these movies I keep thinking why are they trying to convince people with facts at all I mean why don't they just say believe it on faith that's what I find so interesting this is my theory people who don't have good critical thinking skills are kind of wandering around in the Christian world but they like to think that if you really looked into it it could be proven that it was true even though you don't have to prove it's true you can just say that it's on faith but if you did look into it you would find out it was true and then they make these movies where people kind of sound like they're saying facts and they sort of sound like they're good critical thinkers except that it's just completely absurd and ridiculous and then the end of the movie is like that's right and they can even prove the resurrection that's my theory okay oh god you guys are you like that's it Julia you've got two movies and you're out of here okay I'm not ashamed I'm not ashamed is a hard one we're supposed to most ridiculous movie it's about a girl that was killed at Columbine where they retroactively Lee went back and made her a much much bigger Christian than she ever was she right before she was killed at Columbine apparently she went up to like ten different people and told them that God loved them and guys who like have Down syndrome she wanted to date them and other guys that were horrible she told them that everything was gonna work out okay and then she was killed at Columbine death one is a bad one for the atheists I have to say even though it's completely disproved it's based on this idea that she was killed next to this guy who said that the Columbine killers said do you believe in God and she said yes and they said well then go be with your God but then later that same guy said well I don't know if that's actually what they said like maybe I didn't hear anything and maybe everything was terrible but anyone that obviously really vilifies yes okay let's get out of pure flix let's move on to the big money movies okay so Sony has a division called affirm films where they make big-budget movies with big stars that are religious movies so their movies are for example heaven is for real miracles from heaven risen the shack the war room okay so heaven is for real is about the guy who was four year old son went to heaven he wrote a book because he got sick his appendix burst he went to the hospital and while they were operating on him his four-year-old son who was completely primed with all this religious imagery and completely coached but they even show in the movie did you talk to God was did God have wings was there rainbows around they completely you know they even just show that in the movie they don't care um the guy wrote this book about it it sold twenty million copies at the book then they made this movie that stars Greg Kinnear which is like I feel like Greg Kinnear who I've never met but I feel a little Peary with him like if I met him I would feel like he's a comedian and I just feel like what why why would she make and I think it's because it cost ten million dollars and making made a hundred million dollars at the box office I think that might be why then there's miracles from heaven starring Jennifer Gardner and that's about a woman whose daughter who has an intestinal problem where she's got all these tubes in her lower intestine doesn't work and she's got all these doctors working on her and her daughter plays in a tree and falls down the middle of this dead tree and hits her head and her intestines start working again and it's a miracle and it's so great because at the end she's crying because she was gonna lose her faith too because of her daughter um but then her daughter's well again so she believes in God again and then at the end they you can tell how they're trying to appeal to a and a slightly skeptical audience they want to get all everybody so at the end of the movie she goes I think Jennifer garden it's like it was a miracle it's a miracle because God loves my daughter and me and we prayed so hard and now she's gonna live and then she says you know Einstein once said there's any time Einstein is quoted you just know God um if Einstein can come back he'd never stopped throwing up over all the quotes that were attributed to him um there are only two ways to live your life as though nothing is a miracle or as if everything is a miracle which okay just think about that statement that is a completely Nothing statement that's just saying it's complete every single like but then in the movie so Jennifer Gardner says that and then she goes in so after my daughter had her miracle of getting well again I realized you know what everything's America the Sun came up it's a miracle the grass is growing it's America my husband's face my house my car it's a miracle and then I looked it up and Einstein that's been debunked Einstein didn't even say that it's just like I love these quotes from the big celebrities that turned out to be debunked my favorite one is the George Eliot quote it's never too old to become whoever you were meant to be she never said that plus all of George Eliot's books the theme is sometimes you're too old to be anything okay really her theme is the opposite of that quote yet I have seen that on a sticker on a refrigerator at least ten times okay oh my god then there's risen that's the other one from a fern films that's where there's a guy a Roman centurion it's 33 ad I think you know what's happening Jesus this guy named Jesus risen from the dead and they call this roman tribune in and he basically becomes Columbo they go you've got to investigate this crazy guy Jesus and also there's all these you know Jewish people there who look so horrible and they're like we can't have a messiah like that you better debunk this Jesus and then the roman tribune goes out and the interviews all the apostles and he's practically is kind of like Columbo he's like now let me get this straight like it's really hilariously Columbo investigates the resurrection my favorite thing and then he also the Centurion have seen Jesus die so he knows what it looks like right because there's no pictures in 33 AD and um and then he goes into this room at the Apostle and there's Jesus and Jesus is this really like hey that's right it's me I'm alive and and then he goes I guess I have to believe too or I'm so confused I don't know what to do and then the Apostles go come with us and they all go out to this kind of desert II area that has some water and several the Apostles and the Centurion get on a boat and they go out and the Apostles throw out their fishing net on the left side of the boat and they're pulling it back there's no fish and then all of a sudden Jesus appeared on the sand and says why don't you try the right side of the box yeah and then they throw the net to the right side of the boat and there's a lot of fish and then the roman tribune cuz i have to believe and he's like tearing off his robe I believe I believe okay this is my question about it okay this is what I realized it was actually really great for me to do this because it's been like 10 years since I lost my faith and I really just don't watch any I just ignore all the Christian stuff but to really immerse myself in it like I did the last year it was really educational for one thing what is it with the freaking miracles meaning something like if somebody came in and said I tell you slap your child every morning and lied to everyone you meet do that but look at this miracle and then they did a miracle would you say oh I guess I really have to slap my kid every morning and live it I mean the whole idea is that the whole message of Jesus of just all the message that we all know about Jesus is completely lost it's all about somebody performs a miracle therefore you believe everything they say about a completely other subject okay I'm going faster this Shaq oh my god you guys the Shaq I kid you not this is the plot of the Shaq a guy named Mac oh also I'm so tired of people who believe in God until their own child dies or gets sick and then they question their faith do they not look around at the world or know anyone who's ever had trouble with anyone okay so this guy he has three daughters and one of them is killed and so he loses his faith in God and then he gets a letter in the mail saying meet Papa at the shack now that's interesting because Papa's the name that he his wife and his daughter is called God so how and no one knew that so he goes to the shack for a weekend and that's where he meets God who is I kid you not Octavia Spencer yes it's God as character actress and she invites him in the cabin and she says that's right I'm God and I'm here with two other God's my son Jesus there's this Jewish looking guy who's a carpenter who literally comes out with like a hammer hi I'm Jesus and the Holy Spirit which is this asian chick who looks like she's taking quail it she's like hey man and she goes yeah she's the Holy Spirit and then he hangs out at the shack with God with these three people and it's so Oprah asked God stuff like Octavia like Mack says to Octavia Spencer God he says wait a minute I thought you're supposed to punish people you're a mean god and Octavia Spencer says who told you that um you know what I say having to live with the fact that you've sinned is punishment enough which I personally find so heinous I mean I mean the truth is there's a lot of people who've sinned or done terrible things who don't really care that they've done terrible things and that's one of the things that I hate about the kind of Oprah fide view of God where it's like hey everybody's just on a journey they're just at a different place it's like well actually some people do need to be punished and kept away from other people so anyway oh god that one oh then this is my favorite thing the son the carpenter he takes him on a boat ride there's a lot of boat rides with the Jesus he takes him on a boat ride and they're out in the middle of the lake and then Jesus gets out of the boat and then Matt goes what I can't believe it and then Jesus goes come on you can do it too and then he stands and then Jesus goes let's run and then they run across the water okay I just want to say that move because twenty million dollars I made a hundred million dollars okay okay I'm just doing one more oh I'll just end with okay the war room oh my god I don't know okay the war room the great thing about a tall African American cast this one costs three million dollars made seventy million dollars there's a woman she's a real estate agent she has a really awful husband oh my god he's so terrible and at the beginning at the beginning she was using a lot of Christian II kind of words like she says to her friend now my husband is so difficult submission is hard I was like submission is hard that's such a creepy thing to say and I'm like and then her friend says you know submission is ducking so God can kit your husband is how creepy is that and then she goes to this woman's house that she's gonna sell her house and it's miss Clara and miss Clara has taken a closet in her house and put all of these biblical sayings on it and she goes in there and that's her war room where she tells God how to fix the world and convinces the real estate agent that she should do that and the real estate agent cleans out a closet that's a big hilarious montage she's cleaning out her closet to put up the signs of Jesus and the sayings of Jesus and her husband in the meantime is in another city courting another woman about to have an affair and she finds out about it and so she prays to God to do something and you cut back and forth between her in her war room praying to God to not let her husband cheat on her and then you cut back to the husband who's flirting with the young woman and then all of a sudden the husband goes oh he has terrible indigestion and he throws up that's what God did to stop him have the affair yeah okay I only have one more and I really feel like I've you've really indulged me I just want to say my family is gonna be so happy for this day to be over because it got so depressing watching these movies like it first it was funny like God's not dead like oh this is ridiculous and then by like the 10th movie I was like on my side in the fetal position and my daughter would come home from school and go what's the matter and I go I just watched the case for Christ Mulan's like when does this end I go when we go to the Freedom From Religion Foundation okay so the last one I'll tell you about actually didn't make money but I thought it was interesting why it didn't make money okay so Focus Features which is also a big production company they're trying to get in on the Christian Act so they make this movie called the young Messiah which is based on an am rice novel and it's all about Jesus at age 7 and I actually this was the only one I didn't make it all the way through I really after half of it it was so horrible so it's Jesus age 7 in Egypt with Mary and Joseph and his older brother James see how her radical this one is and Jesus oh by the way they're in the Middle East in Egypt and this is how the seven year old Jesus talks mother I have a question for you here's a little English accent why did the butterflies come today mommy okay and literally he goes out there's a dead bird and he picks it up and it comes to life niggas mother I don't understand it I picked up a bird and it's came back to life and then his mother has a Spanish accent just like I don't know it cuz I told God I don't know what I did or this and then Joseph the father comes in it goes Mary we've got to talk to Jesus about who his real father is Jesus goes out and he sees a leper and he goes oh and he touches the leper and the leper suddenly cured and the leper turns with his near the beautiful new face and Jesus goes mommy I don't know lost the exit I can't understand what I'm making him into Oliver Twist could I could I have some more please sort of like that mummy why did that man get soup no I made him a Beatle um why did he get so cured and Mary goes and I could not finish that one now that one is the only one of these that didn't make money it cost eighteen point five million dollars because they shot it like in Spain and all over the place this movie costs so much money and it only made seven million dollars at the box office yeah okay now okay so that's the end of that all right now I know you're depressed about it part of me the whole time is like I have to stop my life and write atheist movies I guess but you know atheist movies are just movies okay I mean like I don't think it's right to try to think that we're gonna come up with some I mean Oh God and I can't decide if these films are a terrible sign of the future or if they're kind of this last gasp because I have to say when you look when you go online and you read the comments section about these movies half the people hate them because they're secularists like us you know people who just hate the world and then but the other half of them who hate them are really conservative Christians who think that they've misinterpreted the Bible in some way so it's not like it's universally accepted although they have made a really a lot of money and now pure flix has like five movies coming there's one coming out next month called same kind of different as me starring Greg Kinnear again and so now I know I was supposed to get up here and just be funny only I'm so sorry about that but I do hope that I have educated you a little bit about the horrendous Christian film landscape out there and thank you for having me [Applause]

Channel: FFRF

Views: 19,282

Rating: 4.7811551 out of 5

Keywords: Freedom From Religion Foundation, FFRF, Atheism, Atheist, Julia Sweeney

Id: 5v7DKQWHuVg

Length: 55min 24sec (3324 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 21 2017