Review: Marcus Brigstocke ‘God Collar’
Comedian Marcus Brigstocke is now well into his God Collar tour, a 1 man show with 1 main topic. As a speaker who struggles to hold people’s attention for 10 minutes, I’m repeatedly struck how, through the medium of comedy, we’re happy to listen to ideas and arguments being developed for a couple of hours. As long as there’s a regular punchline, audiences can still think. Well over 2 hours of Brigstocke was a good workout for both the mind and the diaphragm.
And Brigstocke has certainly been thinking. “I have a God-shaped hole, but none of the available deities seem to fit.” Much of the routine is about reasons not to believe – religious wars (“religion and war are like Ant and Dec, you never see them apart.”), misogyny, obsession with rules, and so on. But at the same time Brigstocke is very honest about his desire to believe, and his conviction that there’s something more to life than just reason – “sometimes I’d rather be happy than right.” The second half is quite personal, talking about his experience of family, children and bereavement, and the encore turned into a 30 minute Q&A session with the audience, giving Brigstocke the chance to land some precise blows on global warming and Top Gear.
It’s an excellent show, if you can cope with a few crude bits. Along the way there is a pop at everyone from IPhone users to Nestle. Brigstocke is nothing if not even handed, from burkas – “bags are for things, not people, grow up!” - to atheists “you’re not cleverer than everybody else”, there’s something to annoy people of every religious persuasion on the spectrum. He points out the weirdness of agnostics who haven’t really given the massive question of God any thought, and gives a superb summary of the difference between Protestants and Catholics.
There was plenty of challenging material. Noahs Ark, that famous childrens story, provided the lead in to a discussion of how many people in the Bible get killed by God. As for the rainbow as a reminder to God not to destroy the earth “if there’s one thing worse than a murderous deity, it’s a scatterbrained murderous deity.” This is one Christians have wrestled with for centuries, ever since early attempts to carve up the Bible to leave out the nasty bits.
More positively, Brigstocke spoke about ‘Goodbye’ (= ‘God be with you’) being a ‘beautiful’ thing, and how things like children and death are times when the God-shaped hole is more obvious. Talking of the death of his grandfather, and his best friend, Brigstocke muses on how comforting the idea of an afterlife would be, and then reminds us that this is exactly the same idea behind 9/11. Coincidentally, the comfort of an (imaginary?) afterlife is also at the root of Ricky Gervais’s plot in The Invention of Lying.
Lots of other good stuff, I’m tempted to quote lots of the jokes but that would spoil it for anyone who might be tempted to catch him. It made me laugh, made me think, and makes me glad that the man behind We Are History is still going. The fact he was prepared to have a go at Richard Dawkins probably helped. His local knowledge was pretty good too – which might have something to do with the fact he went to school in Somerset. On the downside, some pretty crude sexual references, and I’m not entirely sure that a bloke who habitually exposed himself to others is anything to admire.
As a Christian, I felt he was pretty fair about Christianity, with one or two exceptions, and most of his jokes about it were ones I wished I’d thought of first (”Christians are more obessed about gays than gays are”). This is the kind of atheist I’d be happy to have a pint with. Intelligent, fair, honest, questioning. And very funny.
Categories: All WW, Arts / Culture, Columns, Review, Touching Base
Thanks for the review – I didn’t realise he was doing this tour. I’ve never been sure what to think of him – he’s always seemed a little but “funny lite” to be somehow. A nice, amusing guy but not side-splitting. I don’t think it helps that a friend looks like she could be his younger sister so he always makes me think of her and how I really should see her soon.
This sounds interesting, though, and (although I’m a militant Dawkinsite, and very pintable-with at that) the fact that he takes on all views is more interesting than just a rant against religion – are there any really funny atheist jokes? – much as I’d enjoy that. I love the “more obsessed with gays than gays” line.
At the risk of sowing disharmony… who are the daft, unfair, dishonest, unquestioning atheists?
Thanks Carl. Brigstocke referred to atheists who were that way inclined because any attempt to hold a concept as remarkable as ‘God’ in their head made their eyes glaze over. I guess atheism, like any position we public commit ourselves to, can become part of a persona we present to the world. There can be a ‘defend at all costs’ attitude which doesn’t give any credit to people of a different point of view, and my mind immediately wanders to the National Secular Soceity as an example of that. And there are atheists who are consistently sneering and patronising towards people with a religious faith. There are certain well known atheist websites where I simply wouldn’t bother to post a comment, as I’d be buried under Spaghetti Monsters before I’d even hit ’send’.
.-= David Keen´s last blog ..Events: Christian Vision for Men in Yeovil, Transform Work UK =-.
There are atheists who are consistently patronising and sneering to people who believe their god came down to Earth from Heaven, was Incarnate as a man, told his friends how to get free money by looking in the mouth of a fish, claimed the Queen of Sheba would rise from her grave to judge 1st century Jews, and then flew off into the sky, disappearing into a cloud on his way to Heaven.
But why would anybody sneer at these remarkably sane and reasonable beliefs?
.-= Steven Carr´s last blog ..Resurrection Debate =-.
Steven – you seem to be saying it’s ok to be patronising and sneering to people whose views you don’t agree with. Is that right?
.-= David Keen´s last blog ..The Power of Fun =-.
If people hold ridiculous beliefs, they should be ridiculed.
How sneering would you be to somebody who believed that Yeovil Town were a better football team than Barcelona, or that Jesus told his friends how to get free money by looking in the mouth of a fish?
Or that Joseph Smith was given some Golden Plates to translate by the Angel Moroni, or pretty much anything to do with Scientology?
Of course, Jesus would never sneer at other people.
He would just call them ‘hypocrites’, ‘vipers’, ‘blind fools’, ’sons of Hell’, ‘descendants of murderers’.
And this alleged god inspired his writers to call people ‘dogs returning to their vomit’, people in a ’synagogue of Satan’
Atheists are amateurs when it comes to sneering at other people’s beliefs.
Just look at what God inspired in 1 Kings 18 ‘At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.”‘
The people of other beliefs were then butchered on the command of this prophet of God, who allegedly also spoke to Jesus.
So less of the holier than thou attitude and more please of repentance at holding up Jesus as a moral examplar , when Jesus met Elijah (allegedly) and did not condemn Elijah for having 450 followers of another religion butchered.
So when Marcus Brigstocke talks about a ‘God shaped hole’, he should be ridiculed?
.-= David Keen´s last blog ..The Power of Fun =-.
If Marcus Brigstoke fills his ‘God shaped hole’ with the Christian deity, he should be educated as to what Christians actually believe, and then ridiculed if he does not abandon that religion.
Revelation 2
I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds.
2 Peter 2
But these men blaspheme in matters they do not understand. They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish.
They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. With eyes full of adultery, they never stop sinning; they seduce the unstable; they are experts in greed—an accursed brood!
If only Marcus could learn to sneer like a Christian! What hate-speech he could fill his shows with if he could only learn the Christian way of abuse of people, expressions of raw hatred of others, and Christian desires for those people to be destroyed by their God.
Of course, ’sneering’ at Christians means quoting their Holy Book.
If you quote the Bible, people think you are sneering at Christians and mocking them.
David, I certainly don’t think it’s okay to be patronising and sneering to people I disagree with. But from an atheist’s point of view, I have to say that’s a pretty common experience I have when dealing with religious people. Yes, it’s true that I think my view is correct, and that there is no god. But it’s believers, actually, not atheists, who are more likely to claim to *know* their view is the correct one, and see no need to discuss it, debate it or respect the views of people who disagree.
The thing about sneering at *people* rather than beliefs is also important, I think. I agree with Dawkins and to a certain extent Steven that ridiculous views are rightly ridiculed. I’m quite happy for religious believers to ridicule atheism if they like, and I’m very happy for them to criticise it. Obviously I think atheism is robust enough to take that criticism – everything believers can possibly throw at it – and survive unscathed. What I’m less happy about is if religious people attack the atheist “men” rather than the atheism “ball” – and I think that happens a lot.
With Dawkins, for example, believers often accuse him personally of arrogance, sneering, exaggerated certainty etc. – attacks on his personal style, most of which I think are actually unfounded; while at the same time neglecting to take on his arguments and even quoting arguments he’s not made and “refuting” them., as though they’ve never even read him. That’s the way I felt about Alistair McGrath having listened to a lecture of his – his “response” seemed well below the level of Dawkins’s original argument. The same goes for Terry Eagleton’s ludicrous attempt to argue that Dawkins fails because he doesn’t know enough theology (which is like saying you can’t argue that the world is round without being a serious earth scientist, or that you can’t offer a view on whether there’s a man on the moon without being a lunar specialist).
I think on the whole, atheists tend more to attack the religion ball than the religious men – but it’s precisely the religion ball that religious people often want to protect from discussion, or give special status to, through ideas like religious hatred laws, the absurd Ladele case, the political campaign to force girls to wear the hijab in schools and the attempt to exempt catholic agencies from discrimination legislation. Not to mention the total lack of respect for the principle of sex equality in the churches and in the practice of Islam!
CARL
The thing about sneering at *people* rather than beliefs is also important, I think
CARR
That is why it is important to actually quote Christian beliefs accurately.
If their Holy Book tells them that Jesus told his friends to get free money by looking in the mouth of a fish, then why on Earth are atheists forbidden to ever mention this?
Contrast the Bible, where people of other beliefs are met with sheer personal abuse, calls for their destruction, or sometimes are just butchered.
Steven:
“Bless those who persecute you, bless and do not curse” (Paul)
“Love your enemies” (Jesus)
etc.
But we could quote the Bible at each other all day and get nowhere.
Carl – agree completely, though I’ve seen it from both sides. The conduct of some Christians is shameful, and does not credit to what we profess to believe.
On Dawkins, as with any part of the science and faith debate, it’s a question of getting the facts right. If Dawkins misrepresents/misunderstands what Christians believe, then that can hopefully be challenged without it being seen as an attack on him. Both McGrath and John Lennox, in their books in response to Dawkins, seem to do this respectfully.
Maybe Richard Dawkins acts as a bit of a lightening conductor. After all, if you want to have a go at religion there are millions of targets to choose from, but there aren’t really any atheist institutions or ‘holy books’, (unless you count Marx, but communism is a kind of faith system too).
David points out the trouble with atheists. They ignore the 1% of the Bible that is nice and go after the other 99%, taking it entirely out of context.
Notice that David does not condemn mass murder by associates of Jesus, contenting himself with ‘Well, anybody can quote the Bible’,when the hate-speech of his inspired book is pointed out.
All you have to do is say ‘Love your enemies’, and you can happily talk to murderers and mass-murderers as Jesus is alleged to have done, when he spoke to Moses and Elijah.
I guess I will have to wait until the Queen of Sheba rises from her grave to judge me
Time for the obligatory Bible quote, explaining how to be blessed by the Lord.
Exodus 32
Then he said to them, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.’ ” 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then Moses said, “You have been set apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day.”
Of course, if David had a true sense of shame, he would at least concede that his religion is based on divinely blessed mass murder of sons , brothers, friends and neighbours.
Until David repents of his beliefs, he will find his Holy Book quoted at him,in much the same way that people quote the BNP.
Fair enough, David. But how does Dawkins misrepresent anything? And I’m not sure it matters, does it, what he misunderstands, if he misunderstands anything.
In The God Delusion, he doesn’t set out to argue against “the teachings of the church” or “the beliefs of Christians”. He makes it very clear that he’s arguing against the traditional, if you like, “simple”, belief in the objective existence of a supernatural being, creator of the world; he also makes it clear that if you believe in god in some other, metaphorical, symbolic, “spiritual but not really objectively existing” sense, then he’s not arguing against you. How does a failure to understand niceties of dogma or theology invalidate such an argument?
If you think it does, doesn’t it follow that any argument on the existence of god put forward by, say, Aristotle, Anselm, Augustine, Aquinas, Kant and every philosopher (including atheists of course) before say 1900 is totally invalid because it’s ignorant of 20th century theology and belief? And what about Christians or Muslims who reject Hinduism, say – is this because of a lack of understanding?
As far as atheist institutions go, well, we have the NSS! By all means have a go at them, and as a loyal member I shall defend if I can.
>As far as atheist institutions go, well, we have the NSS! By all means have a go at them, and as a loyal member I shall defend if I can.
Having a go at the NSS is shooting fish in a barrel
, and this is probably not the place for a long discussion. I find them quite funny. However…
Take the recent Hospital Chaplaincy report where they waffled on about “services provided for their own communities only”, while totally ignoring the integrated national service framework treating Chaplaincy as part of basic NHS services which has existed for years.
or…
Are you happy with the abusive language routinely and unnecessarily used on their website? Example: A gathering of “faith leaders” described as an “infestation”:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:Wpens2jxekwJ:www.secularism.org.uk/whatthepaperssay.html%3FCPID%3Dktwxmnfj%26startidx31872%3D3200+infestation&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk
(they don’t use permalinks so that will expire)
Usually this stuff appears a number of times every week. I think they constantly damage their own case, such as it is.
On being challenged, the usual explanation is that “it is just a joke”.
Rgds
The NSS were quite wrong about hospital chaplains.
People in hospital need chaplains. Nobody is going to visit them from their parish.
And the Church of England lost a lot of money on their stocks and shares so can’t be expected to pay for hospital chaplains. What are taxpayers for, if not to provide services that the Church of England cannot pay for, such as pastoral visits by Christians tending the sick?
>The NSS were quite wrong about hospital chaplains.
>People in hospital need chaplains. Nobody is going to visit them from their parish.
Any evidence to back this up? Provide a reasoned case and I’ll take the time to answer.
>And the Church of England lost a lot of money on their stocks and shares so can’t be expected to pay for hospital chaplains.
Why should an independent organisation be paying for services that are an accepted and basic part of the integrated medical service provided by the NHS?
Do you imply an expectation that hospital chaplains should be paid for out of the Church Commissioners’ asset base? Why?
I don’t know anything about hospital chaplains, Matt, so I can’t comment on that one. As for infestations, as you thought, I couldn’t follow the link. I didn’t realise NSS was referring to anyone in that way, and no, I don’t agree with it. I think you’re right, it doesn’t help us.
So Matt thinks taxpayers should pay for hospital chaplains, which are hardly needed as the sick are going to be visited anyway by Christians from their local parish.
The Church of England presumbaly needs its money to buy Bibles telling people to visit the sick in hospital.