Movie Review: Religulous - Continued
Published: October 19, 2008
Honestly, it's not the hardest thing in the world to make a religion look silly when you only focus on the kitschiest, most grimace-inducing practitioners of it. Sure, we have to own up to these unfortunate (but fortunately fringe) elements within our ranks, but Maher shores up little credibility for his cause by refusing to talk with any opponent with an ounce of nuance of theological rigor.
He also loses credibility by sheer fact that he is Bill Maher-an ardently liberal, slightly greasy elitist with a penchant for condescension. Maher doesn't help break the "out of touch liberal" stereotype when he smokes pot on camera, for instance. And on Larry King Live in August, Maher exposed his amoral approach to life when he defended John Edwards' extramarital affair, saying, "people like new; you can't stop human nature." This "anything goes" view of adultery is doubtless not an opinion many people share with Maher.
Maher's biggest problem with this movie is not that it is reckless or condescending (which it is), but that it espouses a point of view that, quite simply, is not shared by many people in the world. Maher's ideology has no room for the miraculous or supernatural. Such things are all hocus pocus to him and cannot be believed by anyone with a brain. Faith of any kind (i.e., believing in something that can't be proved) "makes a virtue out of not thinking," according to Maher. Right there he loses about 98 percent of the world's population.
Still, Maher certainly isn't timid. He's about as aggressive as anyone can be in espousing an opinion. This becomes evident in the final five minutes of Religulous, when the tone of the film gets deadly serious and Maher presents his closing monologue. Here, he summarizes the argument: religions are dangerous because they make people think they know the answers, even when doubt is the only rational approach to life. Maher ends by calling on all anti-religionists (apparently he thinks there are huge numbers of them in hiding) to quit being timid and take up the cause of shutting down religion in the world. Otherwise, the religion-caused apocalypse will surely be imminent.
What nuance Maher had up till then is lost in this final segment of alarmist hysteria, which reminded me of LBJ's famous "Daisy Girl" ad during the 1964 presidential election. It's a cheap shot scare tactic-somewhere between An Inconvenient Truth and Future Shock-and it conveniently ignores certain facts about history, namely that religion has been the source of untold good in the world. Maher's thesis that all things evil and destructive are a result of religious delusion simply does not hold water historically. Countless atheistic regimes have bred violence and calamity in the world, totally outside of any religious motivation. Religion has far from a perfect record, but then again, nothing has a perfect record.
Religulous is best seen as a comedy (and there are many funny moments) and not as a serious or measured examination of anything. It's a movie meant to make religious people look stupid, to "prove" that religious belief and intelligence are mutually exclusive. If you are already prone to believe that, then this movie is for you. For everyone else, Religulous is a trifling and shoddy tirade that, ultimately, is not much of a threat.
Reviewed by Brett McCracken for Christianity Today
Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. All rights reserved.
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Movie Review: Religulous
Published: October 19, 2008
A look into comedian Bill Maher's new controversial documentary about religion.
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