Bill Maher’s movie (documentary) Religulous is a direct assualt on religion — shows all the inconsistencis — in fact total stupid beliefs and behavior by religious people. I found it very interesting and compelling.
This movies makes one think about how could so many people all over the world be so stupid. It shows the weak side of humans — humans need shallow intellectual structures to provide them ‘faith’ or ‘belief’. And I must say that I am surrounded by more of those than people who really think and behave rationally.
He urges people to be bold and oppose religions. I liked his appeal.
Is this movie in theater? I may have to see it ( i doubt it’s being played here though)
I remember him talking about it on a tv show i was watching it here. It seems very interesting and as Karl Marx said ” religion is Opiate for the masses, and it serves as state of false consciousness”
Did he point out some cultures being more dependent on religion than others?
The issue I had with this movie was that Maher isn’t interested in answers. Religulous is a profane, condescending, and often funny rant against religion — Christianity especially, but also Judaism, Mormonism, and Islam.
But Maher’s mocking documentary promotes the idea that only oddballs, cranks, and nincompoops can take religion seriously. That’s a fairly easy case to make if you focus, as Maher’s interviews mostly do, on oddballs, cranks, and nincompoops: the Puerto Rican cult leader who claims to be the Antichrist, the pothead in Amsterdam with his marijuana “ministry,†the misfit rabbi who embraces Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the young-earth creationist who teaches that human beings and dinosaurs co-existed.
It’s also easy to portray faith as a goofy fairy tale if you spend your time deriding tales of ancient miracles — a burning bush! A virgin birth! A prophet swallowed by a fish! — but never pause to acknowledge the far-fetched improbabilities inherent in atheism, see http://www.direct.ca/trinity/crutches.html.
Maher characterizes religion as “fantasy and nonsense.†Yet atheism is no guarantee of enlightened rationality. In a study released this past September, researchers at Baylor University found that adherence to “traditional . . . religion greatly decreases credulity, as measured by beliefs in such things as dreams [foretelling the future], Bigfoot, UFOs, haunted houses, communicating with the dead, and astrology.â€
By contrast, those who reject traditional religion — “self-identified theological liberals and the irreligious†— are “far more likely†to believe in superstition and the occult. Or other nonsense: Maher, for example, claims that aspirin is lethal, doubts that the Salk vaccine eradicated polio, and has praised the horse that threw Christopher Reeve.
So it is unsurprising that Maher sees only the foolishness and evil that religious people, like all people, are capable of, and misses entirely the extraordinary good that religion engenders. Numerous researchers have found that “religious people are happier, more charitable, have more stable families, and contribute more to their communities.†They are less likely to suffer depression or commit suicide, to use drugs or be involved with crime, to drink to excess, or to smoke.
The Los Angeles Times reported last year on research showing that people without faith were less likely to help a poor or homeless person than religious believers. While both were equally likely to describe themselves as “good citizens,†their charitable practices were strikingly different.
Americans of no faith donated an annual average of $200 to charity; active-faith adults typically contributed $1,500. Even when church-based giving was subtracted from the mix, religious Americans donated twice as much to charity as the nonreligious.
It is no coincidence that so many hospitals, schools, homeless shelters, and aid organizations have been started and sustained by religious groups.
We are creatures designed to flourish — to heal and to help — when we believe.
I saw Religulous and was surprised at how funny it was. We laughed quite a bit. The editing is great and it was good to see a movie show how brainless religion makes people. None of the religious people liked being questioned. It made them defensive and angry, or they just pooh-poohed reason and science completely. I’ve never been a big fan of Bill Maher, but I agree with the premise of his movie. It’s interesting to contrast that with Ben Stein’s movie, Expelled, which makes Darwinism responsible for Bolshevism and the Holocaust. I guess religious people will tell any lie to make themselves look better than they are.
Bill Maher’s a comedy god, i totally agree with your comments Ramesh, I only wish more people like you understood and started talking sense, thanks 🙂
I have not seen the movie but I could agree that it must have well disclosed the unknown negative side of the religion & it is a good step.
However I believe that there is a way to find/strive for positive side of it & implement without forcing others to agree with what we believe.