gbrunoro

@ Stoney: be careful when you talk about dogmas and absolute truths; you need to specify that you are referring to monotheistic religions, namely Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. What you say doesn't apply to all other religions that accept the existence of other deities without any problems. As for the rest, I clarified that my comment was a provocation (and watch out when discussing Gott min us for Giuseppino and company, because the Nazi regime was anything but religious, unless you consider the cult of Hitler himself a religion...)

As usual, I reverse the rating: my 3 goes to the review, since I haven't read the book (and I didn't like it :D)

Oddifreddi has always left me puzzled; as someone pointed out in the comments, I've always seen him as a science zealot (it's a provocation). Reading any religious or literary text with "scientific" criteria is a complete nonsense, just as claiming the superiority of science over humanistic culture is. Let me ask you something: is The Divine Comedy a book for fools simply because it’s filled with scientific nonsense? Who cares...
Another small detail: most of the greatest scientists/mathematicians of all time have also been tremendous philosophers or theologians, demonstrating that there is only one thing that truly matters, and that is intelligence. Oddifreddi remains a decent popularizer and little more, probably a bit too presumptuous and full of himself to be truly great.
Finally, a provocation: religions have never caused wars; it’s humans who provoke wars. We always blame something external for human behavior and stupidity: politics, religion, love... it’s us humans and our limited, foolish brains that are the cause of everything. Science itself is good, but if I'm not mistaken, it’s science and scientists who study increasingly deadly bombs and ever more "scientific" ways to cause unimaginable pain and suffering, etc., etc.
In short, reducing everything to these levels seems frankly like a waste of time.

@Odradek
I fully endorse the second part of your comment.

@Odradek
The quote is present in the film: it is the opening of the Declaration of Independence of the United States, and I would never claim that I wrote it! What I meant by "mine," as I tried to explain later, is that I expanded and altered the context of this quotation. I didn’t want to refer only to the specific case of sexual choices and orientations, but to extend it in a broader sense to the value of freedom of thought and individual civil liberty, identifying these two concepts as the absolute strengths of the United States, for better or worse. It’s like when one identifies France with the French Revolution and the concepts of Liberty, equality, and fraternity, which go beyond the actions of the French government, which very often has acted contrary to these principles.

@Odradek
The quote is mine, or rather the context is different from the one presented in the film. I would like to emphasize that "unique" that I included in the sentence, indicating that there is a very critical analysis of American actions in the political, economic, and cultural landscape of the last two centuries, as I believe I explained in my previous comment.

@Macao
I know history well, and not just post-war history. And I am well aware of the many and various crimes committed by Americans. Nonetheless, it is impossible to deny that to this day the U.S. is the only country in the world where freedom of thought is sacred and where civil rights are respected, with all the exaggerations that entails, of course. Then there are the United States' darker aspects: Guantanamo, the assassination of JFK, Vietnam, South America, and so on. But it is also the country where all the critical and "counter" movements of the last century were born: from the flower children to the people of Seattle (it's worth remembering that today's anti-globalization movements originated in the U.S.), from peace movements to those advocating for civil rights, from environmentalists to feminists. The only Western country capable of electing a black president and electing, in 1978, an openly gay man to hold an institutional office. I believe this is the great strength of this country which, like all institutions of power throughout history, has showcased tremendous limits and criminal decisions, but I cannot find a state in the history of humanity that has not done the same (at various levels depending on its geopolitical power).

I've always preferred Amaro Strega... hey Bartleboom, how did you manage to correct the typo in the review after it was published?
As for Brizzi, he continued with Bastoigne, a horrendous book embarrassingly copied from Burgess and a few other texts, only to end up in the oblivion of writers who were once famous and who therefore write for various magazines, publish books that no one reads, and so on.

A shameless copy-and-paste from a myriad of different texts, artfully crafted as an editorial case. A country with serious criticism would have literally torn it apart, exposing it right away for what it is, namely a poorly assembled compendium of many generational texts. Read between the ages of 14 and 17, it may make sense, but perhaps not.
Very nice the personal and intimate tone of the review (is there a missing "in love" in the last sentence?).

I switched the votes on the disc and rece... sorry :D