George Carlin - “There is no God”
21 August 2006 by StardustThis is old (1999), but George says things so very well and it’s worth watching again for a laugh.
In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can’t hold a candle to a clergyman. ‘Cause I gotta tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, religion. No contest. No contest. Religion. Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time!
But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, you talk about a good bullshit story.
Holy Shit!
21 August 2006, on 8:41 pm
Thanks for sharing - that was so GREAT. I love George Carlin!
21 August 2006, on 8:45 pm
I’ve felt this way for a while now; that preachers are con artists. Think about it; if they were selling any other pie-in-the-sky idea, and asking for money, everyone else would think of them that way, too.
Do they never think about the fact that they cannot prove one thing they say — yet they teaching it to other people?
21 August 2006, on 8:59 pm
Fortunately, unlike those halcyon Dark Ages, where the Church had absolute control of all information, people today can and do read. Well, okay, they can but they often don’t. “An office temp with a bad attitude” that pretty much sums up the competence of any putative supreme being. Carlin rocks.
21 August 2006, on 9:41 pm
This is off-topic of Carlin…but still has to do with religion.
Kodiak Island, Alaska Update: My Baptist niece and youth pastor hubby who recently “were called by the lawd” to this island of fog and chilliness have been “witnessed” to at their new home a couple of times now by Jehovah’s Witnesses (which I think is absolutely hilarious)! When my sister told me about it, she thought it was funny until I said “I can imagine everyone on the island going around trying to convert each other — moonies trying to convert the Baptists, the Baptists trying to convert the moonies, the JWs trying to convert the moonies and Baptists, the Pentecostals trying to convert the Baptists and the moonies and JWs, the Baptists trying to convert the Pentecostals, moonies, JWs, Russian Orthodox, Catholics, etc….it would make a really funny sitcom!” (There is a large cult of moonies on the island.) My sister (who is also Baptist) stopped laughing and got really mad at me! LOL!
21 August 2006, on 9:43 pm
We’ve posted this one here a couple of times, but never as video. Thanks, Star!
21 August 2006, on 9:45 pm
You’re welcome, Sean. I thought we all could use it after the fundie infestation we’ve had the past few days.
21 August 2006, on 9:58 pm
I enjoyed watching it. Have only heard it as audio before. Carlin rules.
Ya gotta think, many of those drunken screaming people in his audience went home that night, passed out, and woke up the next day about as dumb as they ever were. If not, there would be a thousand more of us every time George gave a show.
Atheism’s ideas are almost like a fleeting moment for them. “I agree completely, and he’s hilarious, but I can’t live with this. Back to church!”
21 August 2006, on 10:16 pm
Stardust
Good job. I have been listening to Carlin (Saint George) for as long as I can remember. Kodiak Island the sitcom. Precious.
To the xian Carlin has deep shock value to be saying those things about god (I hope god doesn’t hurt him yet) . To us it’s just common talk and joking around.
21 August 2006, on 10:34 pm
This is great stuff, and it is on one of my “Quotations” pages. Nobody gets right to the point the way Carlin does.
21 August 2006, on 10:34 pm
Oh, yes, someone write a sitcom “Kodiak Island”. That’s so funny, Star!
21 August 2006, on 10:50 pm
Ah, Carlin. I remember him doing that routine. He also did a bit on Iraq war 1 in the same routine.
“We just love bombing brown people!!!!”
Too bad in the post 9-11 world we’re not allowed to see stuff like this anymore.
21 August 2006, on 11:30 pm
Oh, yes, someone write a sitcom “Kodiak Island”.
I have already started writing a novel based on my family (they are too weird and “entertaining” to not write about even if the book never gets published). My niece and husband are a couple of the characters in the story. If I ever get it finished, and if it ever gets published, I hope most of my family has a good sense of humor about it! They will probably disown me even if I put a disclaimer!
21 August 2006, on 11:34 pm
Looks like someone forgot to close an italics tag.
21 August 2006, on 11:58 pm
Carlin’s a comic ‘master’; and, not that I have any invested interest; but it’s fortunate that HBO has some guts in providing a platform for freethinking comics…and, of course, other arts presentations.
“What the fuck!”…Personally, I’ve become somewhat addicted to “Deadwood”…where Shakespearean style dialog meets the frequent use of the word fuck! ["Swearengen?"]
Yeah, thanks for posting that, Star, that’s a classic Carlin atheist bit.
Hmmm….and as for “Kodiak Island”…THERE’S an HBO project for YOU to write. You certainly have the ability, and the uniquely direct source material.
Oooh!…could be $$,$$$,$$$ in it?
Then again…I know…what’s money?
22 August 2006, on 11:01 am
Star, even if it never gets published, I’d read your novel.
22 August 2006, on 11:27 am
KR- Thanks! I will make sure you get one of the first copies
My family is far more “interesting” than Gilbert Grape’s! Far stranger than fiction. Along with my Baptist relatives on my side of the family, there is a set of 32-year-old eccentric vegetarian twin brothers on my husband’s side (nephews) who also make for fun reading. Their mother (divorced from my husband’s brother more than 15 years ago) believes garden gnomes are real and has an altar and stained glass window behind it in her dinette area of her house for her New Age rituals. My husband’s brother, who has a PhD and is a retired English professor from IU, believes he had an “out of body” experience during a meeting with his commanding officer while in the Air Force several decades ago. The “experience” convinced him gawd is real and we all know you cannot argue with a crazy person.(This was brought up in a debate about our atheism and his Anglican belief in gawd. The out of body experience that he cannot prove happened, and we cannot prove didn’t was his “trump card”.) People who don’t know the family think I am making this shit up! And fortunately for me as a writer, there is more, much more.
22 August 2006, on 1:08 pm
Oh, Star, reading this and your new Kodiak Island installment helps diffuse some of the anger I feel at the Muslim fundie story. It’s hilarious there are so many religious groups on that island; it’s kind of like all the missionaries are on a game show, competing for the residents’ “souls” and loyalties as prizes!
22 August 2006, on 1:24 pm
Folks Carlin has the key, this is how we win. Yes arguing logically, raising awareness, and refuting fundie lies are important, but poking holes in the system with funny, simple and easy to understand routines like this one probably does more to staunch the flow of crazy then the best written treatise. Pass it along often and far.
22 August 2006, on 1:28 pm
Good point, Hilary.
22 August 2006, on 3:35 pm
When I feel the urge to shout praise for some wonderful event or some precious gift from nature I find our sun fits my target very well. I like what Carlin says about the sun. As Carl Sagan use to tell us, we are all made of stardust and our link to the sun is irrefutable. The halo surrounding the heads of religious images in the RC church has its roots in sun worship. Too bad those fairy tale characters get in the way and cast their dark shadows all over the place.
22 August 2006, on 4:25 pm
George Carlin also does a great bit on prayer. Not only is it funny, but it’s a pretty logical argument, as well. I found a version of it here (sorry, I don’t know how to create a live link; please educate me).
http://groundedinreality.blogspot.com/2006/05/national-day-of-prayer.html
22 August 2006, on 4:26 pm
(Never mind. I guess the link is live automatically.)
22 August 2006, on 5:29 pm
Ramen, Lynda; after all, the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, arguably the first monotheist, chose the visible sun as his one and only deity and why not?
23 August 2006, on 12:15 am
Eve, I don’t know, of course, if you’ve ever looked at Acharya S’s shtick…she’s an author very much into the Sun Mythology origin of most, if not all religions.
Check this Site out; and scan down for her various article links. [Ignore all the side ads, of course?]
http://www.truthbeknown.com/christconspiracy.html
23 August 2006, on 12:42 am
[...] I just happened onto this 1999 George Carlin comedy routine – a slick, pointed and . . . well, Carlinesque . . . critique of religion. [...]
23 August 2006, on 1:07 am
I guess I should watch the whole thing before making a comment. I…am…a…dope. Won’t happen again. And I must admire everyone’s civility in not calling me out.
23 August 2006, on 9:05 am
Joe bless you!
25 August 2006, on 9:24 am
[...] So I was thinking about the Carlin video and how he says, “What’s the point of having a Divine Plan if every rundown schmuck with a two-dollar prayer book can come along and fuck up your plan?” [...]
15 September 2006, on 1:17 am
I love George Carlin. I even have a day-by-day calender of quotes from him. Much of what he said here is in it. I save the best ones, if I can. He says the exact things that I say to myself, alone… but that I tend to forget when a discussion starts.
( I don’t know why my previous post didn’t work.. I apologize. )