'Religulous' Movie Profound and Hilarious
November 9th, 2008
Connecting the Dots
by Glynn Wilson
For controversial comedian Bill Maher, formerly of Politically Incorrect and now with Real Time on HBO, the comedic documentary Religulous is his career memoir. It’s his ultimate search for the key question that drives his life and work.
And after all the years of watching him on TV, we find out why he is the heir apparent to George Carlin on the subject of religion in American life. In this autobiographical story, he intersperses interviews with his mother, who raised him as a Catholic until the age of 13, when he found out his father was a Jew. The family stopped going to church about the time the issue of birth control became such a political sin in this country after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.
Is that not a background with the makings for some serious religious-psychological baggage? It’s no wonder the subject figures so prominently in his art.
The title of the film is a literary device known as a portmanteau, a new word derived from two other words, in this case “religion” and “ridiculous.” The film examines and satirizes organized religion and religious belief, in a host of successful venues.
Maher’s story begins in Megiddo, Israel, where according to Biblical prophecy, the world will end when Jesus Christ is supposed to return to Earth. Of course Maher refers to the Bible, especially the Old Testament, as “that book of Jewish fairy tales.”
Director Larry Charles, who is known for the comedy hit Borat, mixes stock footage from movies, religious television programming and other documentaries to connect the dots and hammer home Maher’s points.
Maher travels to interview scholars at the holiest Jerusalem sites, and visits a Raleigh, North Carolina, truck stop church, a converted trailer, where he engages some of the South’s most mixed up Christians on the philosophical subject of whether God exists.
He managed to get into a mosque in the Middle East, where the head Muslim has him run out because “he is not a funny Jew.”
In Orlando, Florida, Maher interviews an actor who plays Jesus at one of the most ridiculous capitalist abuses of religion in the U.S., the Holy Land theme park. It’s the Disney World for Christians, and Maher has more fun engaging the people there than anywhere in his travels, with the possible exception of Amsterdam, where he shares a joint with a believer of legalization of marijuana on the basis of religious freedom.
Also in Florida, Maher meets up with a Latino named Jesus who claims angels visited him and proclaimed him as Christ reincarnate, a rare pastor who does not believe there is a such thing as sin and is certainly not apologetic for all the money he’s made in the name of God.
He has a long exchange with John Westcott of Exchange Ministries, a converted gay man who tries to convert other gays for Jesus.
Then the most obnoxious creature encountered in the film is a wild-eyed Jew who believes Israel does not deserve to remain in Jerusalem, who is shown in newsreel footage embracing Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Maher stepped on the dialogue with him more than any other interviewee in the film and cut his visit short.
Maher has quite a bit of fun with a devout evangelical U.S. Senator from Arkansas, Mark Pryor, who is unable to answer questions about evolution and faith, but admits, “You don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.” (Nevermind that there’s no such thing as pass/fail on an IQ test. It’s a measure of basic intelligence with a score of 100 as average. On second thought, this guy fails : )
Then after all the comedy is done, after he is kicked out of the Vatican and visits the Holiest site in Isreal and pokes fun at Mormons, Scientologists, Southern Baptists, radical Jews and gay Muslims, Maher makes the point he wants to make.
“Religion must die if mankind is to live.”
Now can we stop voting in churches please?
He points out that at least 16 percent of the American population agree with him on religion. He calls them “rationalists,” not atheists.
Then of course there are at least 48 million pot smokers in the U.S., a point he fails to make explicitly, although it’s there. Both groups are larger than any other minority or special interest group in this country. If only they would get together in a political movement, imagine how they could continue to change America now that Obama has been elected president?
Henry Rosenbush of RosenbushCafe.com contributed reporting for this review.
Religulous Movie Trailer
Bill Maher On CNN’s Larry King Live Talking About Religulous
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Tags: Legalize Marijuana, Religulous Movie Profound and Hilarious
November 9th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Nicely done.
If they got all the reefer smokers together and they got at least one straight-laced Christian stoned (not the biblical punishment mind you) perhaps they would understand the need to open their minds to other possibilities.
As George Carlin advised in his last HBO Special/CD, “It’s Bad For You” when faced with the concept that our dead relatives look down from Heaven and smile on us:
“There is no up there for them to look down on.”
We spend far too much time concerning ourselves with an afterlife rather than making a better life on Earth.
November 9th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
There are those in American and Alabama politics who might say, yea, but did you see how Obama talked openly about his “faith?”
My reply: Yes, but it wasn’t the centerpiece of his campaign, as it was with Bush. And Obama acknowledges everybody’s First Amendment right to freedom of religion much like the Founding Fathers did, to get those preachers onboard with the revolution, not because they were believers in the sky god.
November 9th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
My only real comment is that there have been more people killed in the name of God than for any other reason.
God exists because people cannot stand to think that when they die, the universe can go on without them. i just thank God for every day I am still above ground, because when I am below ground , the universe as I know it, will certainly cease to exist.
November 10th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Maher takes the same position as John Lennon and Ayn Rand, odd bedfellows to be sure, that “religion” must die out for humankind to advance.
As a Nichiren Buddhist, I disagree wholeheartedly.
Maher, Lennon and Rand are all on target with the failings of monotheistic religions. But they all seem fairly ignorant of the spiritual path of Buddhism, and of its values, which are diametrically different from those of monotheistic faiths.
Indeed, my opinion is that humanity needs a sane, rational, egalitarian, all-embracing spiritual path, and that Buddhism provides such a path, although there are other similar paths as well.
A world completely devoid of spirituality would be far worse than the world today, I believe, and that’s a distinct probability that Maher, Lennon and Rand do not take into consideration.
They are right in their indictments of the excesses of fanatical monotheists, but wrong in their conclusion that, ipso facto, all spirituality is bad.
History bears this out, history which most Westerners are blissfully unfamiliar with: the most advanced, enlightened governance experienced in the world came about during the reign of King Ashoka in ancient India, according to agnostic historian H. G. Wells. Ashoka was a dedicated Mahayana Buddhist.
Additionally, there were other similar periods of enlightened, compassionate governance under Buddhist rulers in ancient China and Heian Japan.
Ultimately Maher, Lennon and Rand equate monotheism with spirituality and Western history with human history, a culturally-biased and exceptionally flawed analytical approach.
November 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Well, Yana, I know you also blame yourself for all your troubles over the years, and I believe that is flawed reasoning based on your faith. Just as I believe it is false reasoning on my mother’s part to think it was somehow god’s will that my van breakdown so I couldn’t go camping this weekend : )
It is a machine and machines break. Nothing more. Nothing less.
In your case, how do you account for the other people who are responsible for playing a role in causing you problems?
For one example, was it simply my fault that I didn’t get tenure because I wasn’t praying enough? Or did the other people’s politics on the committee have something to do with it?
I guess if we were all part of one-world government religion in your view, there would be no disagreements? Doesn’t that take us back to monarchy?
If you want to talk about spirituality, I’ll take E.O. Wilson’s any day. The top science mind from Alabama soil has worked in recent years to get church goers to realize that if they believe the Earth is God’s creation, then they should be all for protecting it as stewards.
In his book The Creation, Wilson suggests that scientists “offer the hand of friendship” to religious leaders and suggests building an alliance with them, stating that “Science and religion are two of the most potent forces on Earth and they should come together to save the creation.”
Personally I don’t need to go to church or to believe in a sky god to understand why the planet needs protecting. But if it helps others get onboard the good fight, good!
Wikipedia on E. O. Wilson
But I do tend to agree with Bill Maher and George Carlin on this issue. I think most religion is funny, yet dangerous.
I will fight to uphold the First Amendment right of people to believe however they want to believe. But I will also continue to fight to get the religion out of our politics and government.
Surely we can agree on the separation of church and state. If not, the wars will continue…
November 10th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
As an addendum: the separation of church and state is, as Glynn notes, extremely important. Government has no business funding “faith-based” groups of any kind, for any reason.
At best, spiritual values should inform the morals and ethics of politicians. Against that standard, the Bushies and neocons have failed miserably, despite all their posturing. At worst, religion is yet another cover for heinous government activities. In the “using religious posing as cover” department, the Bushies have taken it over the top.
America’s founders deliberately created a wall between church and state. Their historical and cultural experience was not very far removed from the Europe of their immediate ancestors, where religious persecution by the state was the order of the day for centuries. As Washington wrote to one foreign acquaintance, “The government of the United States is in no sense founded on the Christian religion.”
Contemporary politicians, most especially those on the right, need to revisit what the founders had to say on this issue and understand why separation of church and state is vital for freedom and democracy.
November 10th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Oh, I didn’t answer Glynn’s question about blaming myaelf for all my problems. So, here goes.
Buddhism does not teach individuals to “blame themselves” for all their problems, bur teaches the fundamental concept of karma, or the collection of causes and effects in one’s life, that creates tendencies in one’s life.
So, my karmic pattern or tendency may be to always pick out employment situations in which the boss is an authoritarian, egomaniacal Nazi. (In fact, this is my pattern.) I do not blame either him or me for this, but recognize that my lack of wisdom about myself keeps me repeating the same pattern.
My job then is to break this pattern, making use of a deeper wisdom in my life, which Buddhism teaches is tapped through Buddhist practice. And beyond that, to share that experience with others who may suffer from the same, or similar pattern in their lives.
I agree with you on the van breaking down. It’s a machine, and machines break down. Nothing more or less.
But the fact there are little Nazi dictators running around everywhere is something I can challenge, first and foremost by recognizing a subsconscious predisposition on my part to seek employment in the little gulags they run, and working to change that pattern in my life.
And, I can also point out injustice wherever and whenever I see it, helping, I hope, to shrink the power of all those little (and bigger) Nazis to make everyone they deal with miserable.
November 10th, 2008 at 7:12 pm
I’m still not buying it. There are control freaks everywhere. Why not just blame them?
They run newspapers, universities, corporations, political parties and think tanks. Most of them are under qualified and over paid. Many get their jobs because of inherited wealth or quote “Ivy League” connections. Many will not hire or promote truly qualified people because they consider them a threat.
We know from research that they discriminate on the basis of race, creed, height, weight, the size of your nose and the condition of your shoes : )
Isn’t it more fun, for example, to blame Bush than a certain percentage of the American people who voted for the dumbass twice?
It ain’t your fault or my fault. We tried to tell them : )
And Bush didn’t get to where he is because of his good karma, did he? Or the fact that his favorite “philosopher” was Jesus?
Come on…
November 11th, 2008 at 8:33 am
From a karma standpoint, I think America got Bush because we needed to learn a lesson. It wasn’t any “good karma” on the part of Bush.
The recent election proved that enough people learned that lesson that we won’t be saddled with neocon authoritarians in the White House for the next four years.
November 11th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Bullshit. He stole the election to give the oil companies and executives a chance to get silly rich before the collapse. There’s your “reason.”
November 12th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Not bullshit, Glynn, not even a little bit.
If the culture of the country had been different, Bush would never have been in position to steal the election. There is no such thing as coincidence nor do events happen all by themselves. Conditions must favor one outcome over another.
For example, a farmer can plant a certain kind of seed on many acres of land, but if the conditions are not favorable for that particular crop, the seeds will not mature.
Similarly, unless there were fundamental flaws in the political culture and structure of this country, Bush may have wanted to steal the 2000 election but could not have done so.
Obama’s election, brought to fruition by the 21st century grassroots organization he and his managers put together, may well have gone a long way toward changing that flawed political culture of the US.
But neither outcome, either in 2000 or in 2008, happened all by itself nor solely on account of the evil or goodness of a few individuals.
November 12th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
The First Amendment guarantees you the right to that “belief,” but it is just that, a belief. Many people of all kinds of faiths believe the same way.
I also not only have a right to a “belief,” but to understand what science says on the issue: You have no proof. There can be no proof. Therefore, I say EVERYTHING happens for NO religious or spiritual “reason.”
Now if you want to talk cultural reasons, we could start with the education system, screwed up families and the press in this state and country. But none of those things have anything to do with religion or spirituality. You are changing the subject : )
November 12th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
On another religious subject — maybe related, maybe not — why is it that Christians of all stripes seem to be some of the most intolerant people around when it comes to other people’s rights of free speech and press and an entitlement to their beliefs?
If they encounter one bit of information that challenges one of their assumptions, they bolt for the door.
November 17th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
[...] alike. I have been advocating this position for years to eliminate the Bush deficit. In our recent review of Religulous, the hit movie that came out of an offshoot of one of his big routines over the years, we made it [...]