film review - Bill Maher's Religulous

I've been a fan of Bill Maher's ever since the days of Politically Incorrect. I like not just his politics, which with its moderate stance on social issues and the belief that government is needed to curb the excesses of the private sector matches mine closely, but also his sharp, sacred-cow slaying wit that he uses to pillory groups both on the left and the right. Fans of Bill Maher are familiar with his views on religion. On his show and when he does interviews interviews, Bill often repeats his opinion that religions are neurological disorders. While many books were published in the recent years stating exactly the same thing, the secular viewpoint has been woefully underrepresented in film. That's why Religulous has been on my must see list for a long time.


Since Bill is a political satirist and not a professional documentary filmmaker, I walked into the theater expecting an irreverent Michael Moore style expose on organized religion, instead of a sober piece of journalism like An Inconvenient Truth. The main thesis of the film, which one can infer from its title, is that religious ideas are inherently ridiculous. To show that, Bill traveled around the world to interview people of varying degrees of sanity. Some of the interviews are funny beyond belief. My favorite is an interview with a senior Vatican priest, who basically said, in front of the camera, that the stories in the Bible are fables not to be taken literally. I can't believe a guy who works down the hall from the Pope would admit that.

Another interesting scene is a tour through the laboratory of inventions intended to skirt around various no work rules of the Sabbath. For example, since it's not kosher to start a fire on the Sabbath, the inventor created a wheelchair that runs on compressed air. When asked why he went through so much trouble to jump through scriptural loopholes, instead of just following the rules, the inventor said that the reason these loopholes were included in the scripture is so that someone can take advantage of them one day. I hope he's not going to be our next attorney general. Also memorable was an exchange between Maher and an actor who played Jesus at a Christian theme park, who managed to stay with Bill quip for quip.

However, a lot of the interviews were not as edifying or entertaining. Too much time was spent talking to folks on the fringe, like the barely coherent Arab-British rapper who sang about Jihad, the Orthodox Rabbi who thinks the Holocaust didn't happen, or a guy in Amsterdam who apparently founded a religion based on smoking pot.
These scene make me wish that this film had a more sobering focus.

The film began at Megiddo, the site of the battle of Armageddon as predict by the Book of Revelation. The reason this site was chosen was to show that when the Book of Revelation was written, only God had the power to destroy the planet, but now Man has that power too. The fire and brimstone prophecies found in Abrahamic religions became self-fulfilling as humanity brought Armageddon upon itself. This is a point that I don't think was made often enough, but Bill Maher did not spend too much time fleshing it out. Although the film's narrative is peppered with images of pollution, climate change, and nuclear holocaust, but he never quite connected all the dots. For example, he interviewed a neurologist to discuss recent findings that while the brain is undergoing a religious experience, it is in a state that is similar to a brain in the midst of an epileptic seizure. That's an interesting point deserving in-depth coverage, but Bill spent no more than a minute with this researcher. It didn't help that the interview took place in the Grand Central station in New York, instead of a laboratory where the researcher can show us results of PET scans.

I think Bill Maher's point was that religious belief promotes, noncritical, faith-based thinking which leads to bad policy decisions. However, a condition as universal as stupidity has so many causes that religious faith-based thinking is only one of its many enablers. For example, one of the most vocal supporters of the Iraq war is a high profile agnostic, while several prominent Creationists can see the need to implement measures to halt climate change. In the grand scheme of things, it may be more useful to learn how to talk to the believers in their language to get their support, instead of trying to convince the faithful to abandon their belief system which is not likely to be met with success.

Maher also made a good point that the 16% of Americans who want nothing to do with religion need to join the debate and be recognized. However, besides lacking a belief in the supernatural, people in that group have nothing else in common. It's easier to herd cats than to create an interest group that does not really have an agenda except for not having creationism taught in biology classes.

Maybe the government should sit on the banks' boards

We need to find some way to make sure the banks use the bailout money for its intended purpose, which is to free up credit, not to acquire other banks.

The technology that drives future cars

was invented in 1839. Maybe all the technology we need to reduce our carbon footprint has already been invented, and we just need to make them better.

McCain got a couple of endorsements

The first one if from a well-known international nongovernmental organization.

The other one is from a prominent US politician.

Is Sweden Lucifer's red herring?

Saw an interesting article in Salon about
Scandinavia. It describes a place that many red-state Americans have trouble wrapping their brains around: an advanced and just society of people who don't believe in God.

This reminded me of an interesting science fiction novel I read before. In the book, a group of scientists explored an alien world populated by dinosaur-like beings. The aliens have a society that appear to be ideal - their world is without war, crime, ignorance and poverty. They aliens also have no notion of God or an afterlife. One of the scientists in the expedition, who came from a Catholic background, recommended that the entire planet be quarantined, because he believed, get this, that this planet was created by Satan to deceive Christians. There are many of those from the Abrahamic tradition who believe that all morality is derived from religion, and so it is inconceivable that a society of peace, logic, and understanding can exist in the complete absence of God.

Of course, the idea that monotheism gave birth to morality is hardly new. I don't think it will go away, even if the rest of the world turns into Sweden. After all, apologetic scholarship has had thousands of years of development.

Al the shoe salesman responds to Joe the plumber

new corollary

There ought to be a corollary for the infamous Godwin's Law to include using the word "Socialist" as an epithet.

Simply stated, Godwin's Law states that "as a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." In practical terms, it means that if someone brings up Nazis in a conversation when it
wasn't necessary or germane, that person has demonstrated that he doesn't have the maturity and intelligence to continue an adult conversation, so that it's fair for the other side to end the thread and declare victory.

The latest lines of attack from McCain-Palin seemed to consist of calling Obama a socialist. Now, there are people, perhaps from Scandinavia, who might ask what's wrong with socialism, but that's risky gambit in this country. It would be better for progressives to throw it right back at the guy who wants to buy up bad mortgages.