I went to a free advanced screening of Religulous this afternoon. It's written by and stars comedian Bill Maher. The director is Larry Charles who also directed Borat and you can see similarities in that.
Maher is the son of a Jewish mother and a Catholic father. In a conversation with his mother and sister we learn a bit about his upbringing. He was raised Catholic, not even knowing his mother was Jewish. The went to church but as he notes, he was a kid and of course didn't have a theological basis for his religion, he just didn't like having to wake up and dress up to go to church on Sunday. When he was 13 they stopped going, his mother isn't sure why his father decided this but thinks it's because they used birth control and the church was strongly against the practice..
Bill travels the world and talks with various religious people. Christians, Jews, Muslims, ex-Mormons and even though he doesn't talk to any Scientologists, he makes fun of them too. The participants seemed to have been told they were doing a documentary on religion but once Bill starts asking pointed questions (and really openly mocking them) some get annoyed and walk out. The film is edited so it's not clear if we're really seeing the subjects' complete responses. When Bill makes jokes or comments, they often cut to stock or movie footage to emphasize the point. I'm sure many of the subjects will be appalled when they see themselves in the film. It's probably why they seemingly had to lie about the film to get to interview these people.
I laughed quite a bit and enjoyed it, but it does slow down in the middle. The film is really against fundamentalism although it says it's against religion. He speaks with two Vatican representatives who really agree with Bill on most of his points; but the film doesn't ask at all what these seeming rationalists are doing dedicating their lives to the Catholic church. Are they perhaps finding some good in religion by not taking the Bible stories literally? He talks to some Muslims but the film paints that religion as not only crazy but violent and dangerous as well. The people he speaks to, particularly a woman on the street in Amsterdam where Theo van Gogh was murdered, seem to have opinions I'd be interested in, but either Maher doesn't let them say it or the film edited them out. The only Jew he speaks to is a non-Zionist who went to (as Bill describes it) the Iranian Holocaust denier conference a few years ago.
My big problem is the dichotomy of the approach. Maher wants us to discard religion on the rational argument that the basis of them all is fiction. As he says, what other ideas do we hold on to from the Bronze Age? And the newer religions (Mormonism and Scientology) have to have even crazier stories to keep up. But he wants us to believe this because he tells us the stories are crazy and he makes us laugh at them. There's no rational argument constructed. He interviews a few scientists (including a neuro-theologian) but they too are edited to not present a full case as they must be able to. The film is being pitched as a documentary but it settles for being a comedy, if only it realized it.
The film though isn't trying to convert the believers. It's explicitly aimed at the 16 million atheists in the country, trying to get them to unite and have their voice heard politically. As a group they are larger than the NRA, the Jews, the African Americans, etc. An interview with an evangelical Senator, who ultimately jokes that there is no IQ test for the Senate does show a need. Then again, I don't know what percentage of atheists already vote, for some reason I suspect it is high. After all, atheists don't believe in a divine plan to set things right.
If you've seen his HBO series Real Time With Bill Maher, and I do really enjoy the show, it plays much like the segments where he interviews people on the street. It's not really to more depth, it's just longer. It ends with something like his New Rule segment but it's not one of his best, it just has loud background music and lots of film clips to make it seem more important.
When I got home I saw the House rejected the bailout package and the Dow had its biggest one day drop ever. A big drop happened at the announcement which was at 2pm, right when the Religulous screening started. Maybe there's a connection? Or maybe it just rains sometime.
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