Religulous
I'm posting a movie review for a change. I know I'm already on a roll with posting period, but I want to express some thoughts about this movie. Some of the points are "duh" points for a lot of you, but still...it's not necessarily the common opinion which, in some cases, can be the real problem.
Bill Maher is not a religious man. He interviews two of his family members, one his mother, during this documentary-of-sorts and talks of how they fell out of the Catholic Church. Maher is, by the way, half Jewish half Roman Catholic by birth and raised Catholic. The means to the end are not important - the point is that they fell out of the church and now we have the callous and perhaps overly academic Maher preforming a Critique of Pure Religion as it were. Frankly, I was surprised by the way it turned out. Having seen some of his previous work and knowing how Hollywood, etc., take religion as a whole, I was quite frankly expecting a full blown tirade against religion. What I got was an academic medium accented by a brief tirade at the end of the movie to leave the watcher with a sense of "ZOMG DESTRUCTION!" However, the meat of the movie was quite sensible and, to the average American (in fact, the average inhabitant of the planet Earth) should be quite enlightening and even, dare I say it, a load off of their shoulders once thought about.
Maher's method is pretty routine: go through all of the major religions and examine key arguments, one by one, bringing in relevant evidence from various times, places, and philosophic and theological standpoints. Examples: similarities in the Bible and the Koran (comparisons between Judaism and Christianity notwithstanding because of the proximity to each other); similarities in other religions to the Jesus story (e.g. Krishna was born of a virgin, was a carpenter, healed people, saved lives, died AND rose, etc.), exposed time lines (e.g. the fallacious argument that we know that Jesus was born at midnight on 12/25/XX; obvious similarities between dates of Christian festivals and Pagan festivals); exposed the polytheistic monotheism that is Christianity and expected a defense of this view with hardline Christians. This is really the audience that Maher is catering to and wants to reach out to. The fundamentalist, the literalist, those people who will take the Bible itself as Truth with a capital T and not even bother to think to weed out the parable from the laws or ethics.
Maher travels quite extensively to get this done and his travels give a hint as well to the kind of people he is trying to appeal to. He goes to a "Jesus Experience" tourist attraction - really a Disney of the religious world - in Florida and has a debate with the character of Jesus (a good counterpoint that this poor fellow made [one of only one] was that the explanation of the Trinity can be that God is like the forms of water: it can be liquid, solid or vapor depending on circumstance) in which Maher does well to question belief in God as perfect if He decided to create an experience wherein He will come to claim all the believers. Why does He not just cut to the chase? Why the spectacle? Why the useless parading of the "good" and the "evil" when it could all be over. Why do people need to fill a metaphorical hole in them with God in the first place - why couldn't people just be made whole to begin with and, more importantly, what does this say about our God? Of course, better theologians could make more convincing counterarguments than the Jesus character could have, as he kept going back to God's "plan" for all of us like a skipping record.
Not to debate only those who can't defend themselves, Maher also talks with some prominent officials in various disciplines. Catholic, Islamic, some religion in which the experience of being high is extolled as being closer to God (based in Amsterdam). Notably, the Catholic priests (one of which whom was an astronomer for the Vatican) agreed with Maher that a lot of what is in the Bible is directly inapplicable with the times and a lot of the older slave-driver mentality of the church is gone. Not the hypocrisy of course, as one of the priests pointed out that if Catholicism was true to Jesus' experience it would, at the very least, not have a veritable mansion in which the office of the Papacy resided (of course, thanks to the Holy Roman Empire and corruption of certain Popes throughout the years, here we are). There are a number of very good conversations in this manner throughout the film which I will not go into in the interest of saving time - go see the film yourself. Point is, it is very well done.
To continue, he does attempt to elucidate some of the faults in the various religions. Again, quite notably, the Catholic priests are willing to admit the faults in the religion and move on; the specific priests that Maher talked to could be the reason for this. The Islamic clerics that were talked to as well as the more fundamentalist Christians took a more hardline stance, extolling their religion as the one true religion, true to form and everything that they have been force fed over the years, not bothering to look outside the box and notice the vast similarities between the different theological and cultural ideas of the respective sects. As before, the specific contents of the argument I will leave to the reader to discover upon watching the film.
The major point that Maher makes, especially at the provocative fear-inducing monologue at the end of the movie, is that religion, while a source of hope and comfort for many, in many forms has the ability to be very dangerous and in many cases may in fact be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The common physical ground that Judaism, Christianity and Islam share causes great social and cultural divides between people, fostering animosity and in the worst cases violent action against each other. The differences ideologically, most simply because of self-imposed blinders, also cause the same symptoms which are illustrative of a deeper problem within religion itself which, if not diagnosed and corrected, could lead to Armageddon. Our world leaders (one whom was interviewed during his term in the U.S. Senate and is a self-proclaimed Evangelical Christian - very interesting interview. I quote: "You don't need to pass an IQ test to be a member of the Senate. (laughs)" To Maher's gaping and aghast reaction.) share these biases and, when mobilized towards the extreme, can be our own worst enemy. The underlying message in the monologue at the end is that we need to be cognizant and tolerant of others' cultures and not only respect the differences but celebrate the similarities and, as much as possible, encourage dialogue between the cultures in order to stymie misunderstanding or other seeds of hatred and warfare while, at the same time, giving ourselves a severe reality check as to what we are prescribing to and the histories behind them as none of the major religions have no blood on their hands. Especially, we need to be careful not to radicalize ourselves or our neighbors because, when it is all said and done, religion in and of itself (while a valuable resource) is an irrational behavior to base a lot of our behaviors on, especially when concentrating just on the main characters of the religion and contrary ideas.
I know that none of this is novel to some of you out there (and this may be a gross understatement). I just think that in this day and age, this film is much needed on a widespread level to soothe some of the inflamed emotions around the world. Of course, no solution could be so simple, but there must be a starting point. Pop culture and the media aren't doing too much to help. If this film inspires people to start educating themselves, then this film has achieved its goal as far as I'm concerned.
Bill Maher is not a religious man. He interviews two of his family members, one his mother, during this documentary-of-sorts and talks of how they fell out of the Catholic Church. Maher is, by the way, half Jewish half Roman Catholic by birth and raised Catholic. The means to the end are not important - the point is that they fell out of the church and now we have the callous and perhaps overly academic Maher preforming a Critique of Pure Religion as it were. Frankly, I was surprised by the way it turned out. Having seen some of his previous work and knowing how Hollywood, etc., take religion as a whole, I was quite frankly expecting a full blown tirade against religion. What I got was an academic medium accented by a brief tirade at the end of the movie to leave the watcher with a sense of "ZOMG DESTRUCTION!" However, the meat of the movie was quite sensible and, to the average American (in fact, the average inhabitant of the planet Earth) should be quite enlightening and even, dare I say it, a load off of their shoulders once thought about.
Maher's method is pretty routine: go through all of the major religions and examine key arguments, one by one, bringing in relevant evidence from various times, places, and philosophic and theological standpoints. Examples: similarities in the Bible and the Koran (comparisons between Judaism and Christianity notwithstanding because of the proximity to each other); similarities in other religions to the Jesus story (e.g. Krishna was born of a virgin, was a carpenter, healed people, saved lives, died AND rose, etc.), exposed time lines (e.g. the fallacious argument that we know that Jesus was born at midnight on 12/25/XX; obvious similarities between dates of Christian festivals and Pagan festivals); exposed the polytheistic monotheism that is Christianity and expected a defense of this view with hardline Christians. This is really the audience that Maher is catering to and wants to reach out to. The fundamentalist, the literalist, those people who will take the Bible itself as Truth with a capital T and not even bother to think to weed out the parable from the laws or ethics.
Maher travels quite extensively to get this done and his travels give a hint as well to the kind of people he is trying to appeal to. He goes to a "Jesus Experience" tourist attraction - really a Disney of the religious world - in Florida and has a debate with the character of Jesus (a good counterpoint that this poor fellow made [one of only one] was that the explanation of the Trinity can be that God is like the forms of water: it can be liquid, solid or vapor depending on circumstance) in which Maher does well to question belief in God as perfect if He decided to create an experience wherein He will come to claim all the believers. Why does He not just cut to the chase? Why the spectacle? Why the useless parading of the "good" and the "evil" when it could all be over. Why do people need to fill a metaphorical hole in them with God in the first place - why couldn't people just be made whole to begin with and, more importantly, what does this say about our God? Of course, better theologians could make more convincing counterarguments than the Jesus character could have, as he kept going back to God's "plan" for all of us like a skipping record.
Not to debate only those who can't defend themselves, Maher also talks with some prominent officials in various disciplines. Catholic, Islamic, some religion in which the experience of being high is extolled as being closer to God (based in Amsterdam). Notably, the Catholic priests (one of which whom was an astronomer for the Vatican) agreed with Maher that a lot of what is in the Bible is directly inapplicable with the times and a lot of the older slave-driver mentality of the church is gone. Not the hypocrisy of course, as one of the priests pointed out that if Catholicism was true to Jesus' experience it would, at the very least, not have a veritable mansion in which the office of the Papacy resided (of course, thanks to the Holy Roman Empire and corruption of certain Popes throughout the years, here we are). There are a number of very good conversations in this manner throughout the film which I will not go into in the interest of saving time - go see the film yourself. Point is, it is very well done.
To continue, he does attempt to elucidate some of the faults in the various religions. Again, quite notably, the Catholic priests are willing to admit the faults in the religion and move on; the specific priests that Maher talked to could be the reason for this. The Islamic clerics that were talked to as well as the more fundamentalist Christians took a more hardline stance, extolling their religion as the one true religion, true to form and everything that they have been force fed over the years, not bothering to look outside the box and notice the vast similarities between the different theological and cultural ideas of the respective sects. As before, the specific contents of the argument I will leave to the reader to discover upon watching the film.
The major point that Maher makes, especially at the provocative fear-inducing monologue at the end of the movie, is that religion, while a source of hope and comfort for many, in many forms has the ability to be very dangerous and in many cases may in fact be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The common physical ground that Judaism, Christianity and Islam share causes great social and cultural divides between people, fostering animosity and in the worst cases violent action against each other. The differences ideologically, most simply because of self-imposed blinders, also cause the same symptoms which are illustrative of a deeper problem within religion itself which, if not diagnosed and corrected, could lead to Armageddon. Our world leaders (one whom was interviewed during his term in the U.S. Senate and is a self-proclaimed Evangelical Christian - very interesting interview. I quote: "You don't need to pass an IQ test to be a member of the Senate. (laughs)" To Maher's gaping and aghast reaction.) share these biases and, when mobilized towards the extreme, can be our own worst enemy. The underlying message in the monologue at the end is that we need to be cognizant and tolerant of others' cultures and not only respect the differences but celebrate the similarities and, as much as possible, encourage dialogue between the cultures in order to stymie misunderstanding or other seeds of hatred and warfare while, at the same time, giving ourselves a severe reality check as to what we are prescribing to and the histories behind them as none of the major religions have no blood on their hands. Especially, we need to be careful not to radicalize ourselves or our neighbors because, when it is all said and done, religion in and of itself (while a valuable resource) is an irrational behavior to base a lot of our behaviors on, especially when concentrating just on the main characters of the religion and contrary ideas.
I know that none of this is novel to some of you out there (and this may be a gross understatement). I just think that in this day and age, this film is much needed on a widespread level to soothe some of the inflamed emotions around the world. Of course, no solution could be so simple, but there must be a starting point. Pop culture and the media aren't doing too much to help. If this film inspires people to start educating themselves, then this film has achieved its goal as far as I'm concerned.