Religulous

After some crazy DVD drama over the last day, Michele and I finally got to see Religulous, the psuedo-documentary by Bill Maher. I say pseudo- because it's one of these modern-type documentaries where it's not exactly unbiased. Along the lines of Michael Moore and the right-wing whacko jobs...a documentary to make a point. They need a name for these, I don't know if they have one. :-)

ANYWAY.

The documentary, like I said, is by Bill Maher, a well-known agnostic/atheist like myself. He not only doesn't believe in religion, but he goes as far as to say it's dangerous. I usually only go with the former belief, though I can easily see where he's coming from on the danger part.

He visits many sites and talks to many religious leaders, discussing a wide number of religions including Christianity, Judaism. Mormonism, Islam, and Scientology...basically the ones we're most familiar with. The first part of the movie is largely occupied by Christianity and Bill lays on the comedy well. :-)

The pattern through the movie is to set up mini-debates between Bill and the person he interviews. Each interview is thematic and the topic generally revolves around who the person is that he's talking to. The best example is when he talks to the formerly-gay guy who says he never saw gay who's job it is to un-gay gay people. Bill runs rings around these guys, though frankly I think I could defend a religion better than they did.

When was it so bad to simply say, "I don't know." The religious zealots come up with some of the weirdest stuff to defend their beliefs. We commonly see them feel threatened in a way, no doubt because these people don't know how to defend their religion. Though, honestly, they don't really have to. It's a "belief" after all, isn't it?

The movie was enjoyable beyond words. As an agnostic who thinks religion is pretty silly to believe in, I enjoyed seeing someone with the balls to put this movie out, uh, put this movie out. It had to be said.

I highly recommend the movie. Even if you are religious, you might still find it entertaining because you can see the other religions get mocked. Right? You also might learn a little something, too. :-)

Kudos to Maher!