I just got back from seeing it at the film festival. And I think that everyone here should see it, but I'll be the first to use the Judy-word and describe it as snarky.
Snarky is just what Bill Maher DOES, and that is one of his great strengths, but it does kinda limit the audience you can appeal to to those who agree with your particular brand of snark. The film was very funny in parts, and got quite a few laughs, each of them well-deserved. But at one point in the film, Bill trots out the statistic that in America 16% of the population lists themselves as non-religious. THAT is the audience that Maher is speaking to. And there is nothing wrong with that, because a lot of those people in that 16% still are intimidated by the centuries of persecution in which it not only wasn't "proper" to criticize or poke fun at religion, doing so could cost you your life. His clear message is at the end of the film, and I agree with it wholeheartedly, snark or no snark. We live in an age in which many, if not most, of the predominant religions teach Apocalypse, and to fol- lowers who actually HOPE that it will happen, and that it will happen in their lifetimes. This is insanity. When you have millions and millions of people on the planet ALL believing and hoping that the end is near, well, I'm sorry, but the end really IS near. Consciously and subconsciously, they are help- ing to bring that fiery end to planet Earth by dwelling on it each and every day. Maher is absolutely correct IMO that we who are in that non-religious 16% should speak up every time we see some nutcase preaching hatred and bigotry and violence and Armageddon. I just wish that Maher had been able to find a way to speak to the other 84% of Americans, the ones who have faith. Many of us many find their faith ridicu- lous, whether it is in a talking snake and a guy living for three days in the belly of a whale and a virgin birth or whether it is a blue-skinned flute player fucking 1000 cowherds in one night and a guy with the head of an elephant and another guy who is really a monkey. And most of us know -- if from nothing else our experience on this forum -- that there is NOTHING one can do to talk a person out of even the most ridiculous religious beliefs. If they believe it now, they will believe it until they stop believing it on their own, and no amount of rational argument can change that simple fact. But we might be able to get even the most mindlessly faithful person to *think through* the ramifications of believing that the world is in its last days. That's not faith; that's ego, and really, really *dangerous* ego. That's an insecure ego shouting to the world, "I'm so important that the world is going to die when I die...or at least I hope so." All in all, Religulous is a flawed but interesting and at times very funny look at some of the silly sides of religion, and at some of the downright frightening sides of religion. In my opinion, as human beings we should not only be free to criticize and make fun of other people's religions, we should almost be required to criticize and make fun of our own. The most destruc- tive dogma in ANY religion is that anything we could possibly say or do with regard to that religion or spiritual path could ever be considered Off The Program.
