Religulous (2008)

I have thought about watching this several times over the last couple of years. In the end, I always put it off until there wasn't anything else I hadn't seen. Not because it's a documentary, I waited on watching this film because of Bill Maher. He can be a bit of a prick. I don't care how much I agree with someone or think that they have a valid argument (not saying that I necessarily agree with Maher), but someone who is being conftontational seemingly just to be confrontational makes me feel very anxious. For that reason, listing on the box of the DVD that Larry Charles who directed Borat also directed this film was one of the main things holding me back. No I haven't seen Borat. Yes, I know what Borat is about, and have seen the Ali G show and listened to many interviews with Sacha Baren Cohen.
I don't feel uncomfortable when reporters are talking to people, even the in-your-face investigative type of reporters. I do feel uncomfortable when Jon Stewart of Steven Colbert has a guest on their show, or does a bit with a guest who doesn't know what they've signed up for. This is the reason why I do not watch Curb Your Enthusiasm, which my friends who have recommended it to me are amazed to hear that I don't like. I tried watching the first season and got through about 15 to 20 minutes of each of the first several episodes, but they made me feel so god-damned uncomfortable that I had to stop them. That is not entertaining to me.
For all of the preamble I've just given, I didn't hate Religulous. Parts of it were quite funny because the people Maher was interviewing were just so completely ridiculous. He seemed to be pretty up front about why he was talking to these individuals, yet they were down with it. I felt kind of sorry for the people who tried to stick with their faith in light of his questions and comments, but there were a couple of blokes who were just full of shit - the former member of the Daptones, the dude who claimed to be the 2nd coming of christ, the Islamic scholar who spoke with Maher at the temple of the stone. They were slippery and kept changing their answers. But the worst, the ones that if I didn't know better I would think were actors, were the Jew-for-Jesus and the Anti-Zionist Rabbi. Wow.
The discussions about Scientology and Mormonism would have sounded made up if I hadn't known better. If you want to hear some weird shit, hang out with ex-Mormons or ex-Scientologists. Because of my own life experiences, these didn't shock me. But, I also don't think they necessarily furthered the thesis of the movie. If you pick extreme or fringe groups, necessarily you will get extreme or fringe views. If you really want to prove to me that religion is bad, show me examples that are the most germaine possible. I'm pretty sure that they're out there. I think Bill Maher is a pretty intelligent and articulate guy, so I think that he should be able to sit down with individuals representing mainstream Catholocism and Protestantism and who why Christianity doesn't hold up to serious scrutiny. He could then do the same with Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, etc. Oh that's right, Maher only talks about he Abrahamic religions, especially Christianity. Well, he is an American, making a film for an American audience, so I guess these are the big three.
Maher has some good arguments for peole who claim the bible should be taken literally, but there are plenty who think that some parts are metaphorical or allegorical and I didn't see him willing to talk to these people. What he never discusses is the dualism of science and faith. If you weight fact versus fact, science beats religion every time. But how can you prepare facts with faith? Personally, I believe in many things that I have no factual base to believe in, nor do I have any factual reasons contradicting my belief. I think Maher avoided this for the film because it might be a bit too much navel gazing for a mass audience. But, it might also just be a fallacy in his argument.
I'm not quite sure if Maher is anti-religion, or anti-belief in god. I am fairly confident that he is intelligent enough to see the difference in the two. I am also savvy enough to think that he purposely ignored this to more easily make his point. I have to wonder at what he's trying to do here. I have seen enough clips of him throughout my adult life to know this is a topic that he regularly speaks on, but I also know that he is a professional entertainer. I'm not saying that just because he makes a joke abou religion that he can't also be passionately anti-religious.
I guess for me this is a serious enough topic that I think Maher should put his money where his mouth is. If he want's the non-religious to be taken seriously as a minority, he should start the ball rolling. He has the money to start a PAC, to get meetings and debates scheduled. I think it's fair to say that I'm not interested in the humorous documentary as being a valid argument. If he wants my support, he needs to earn it. I would also appreciate if he had ennunciated his own beliefs. I know that he said, "I doubt." but he sounded pretty sure about some things. If you're an athiest and you come out dissing people for being theists organized into sects, at least have the balls to tell us you're an athiest and not just playing the devil's advocate.

Religulous at IMDb