With Bill Maher, you either love him or hate him. The same could be said of Religulous, his documentary – or mock-umentary, depending on how offended you are.
Religulous is a scathing, intellectual argument against the institution of organized religion. If you are religious, yet open-minded, you may be able to sit through this film. If you are pious, the movie can be offensive.
Maher doesn’t discriminate and takes time to dissect the beliefs of all major religions, aiming at Christians, Jews, Muslims and Mormons. Maher points out how rational people can believe stories from the Bible, which includes a man living inside a whale, yet won’t believe in everyday fairytales.
Being raised Catholic with a Jewish mother, Maher isn’t just an angry atheist. Maher has done his homework in regards to the Bible and religion as a whole. The film is deep in interviews and anecdotes that rebel against religion’s hypocrisy regarding women’s rights, homosexuality and the people who use God’s word to fit their own agenda.
One of the film’s funnier scenes features Maher interviewing a former Jew, who has since converted to Christianity and runs a Christian-themed store.
The man shares a story about a miracle where he stuck his arm out the window and asked for water, and it rained. Maher is quick to dismiss the miracle as a ‘mundane coincidence,’ citing that it rains water all the time and had it rained frogs, then you may have a miracle.
The man insists he knows heaven is a better place and that is where he will go one day.
‘If heaven is a better place, why don’t you kill yourself?’ Maher said in reply.
Maher uses his anti-religion argument as a plea for peace. He insists that the world can come to an end because of humanity’s inability to rationalize and put religious beliefs aside.
‘Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking, those who preach faith, enable and elevate it, are intellectual slaveholders keeping mankind in a bondage of fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction,’ Maher said during a monologue in the film. ‘Religion is dangerous for human beings who don’t have the answers, but believe they do.’
Religulous, now out on DVD, includes deleted scenes not shown in the theatrical release.
