Religulous (a movie thread)

[shereads]

Eee! I'm so excited. I haven't seen this film yet, but I can see a movie theater from a street in my neighborhood so I feel qualified to predict that "Religulous" will rear its head in Alaskan airspace before Vladimir Putin does.

Roger Ebert's review:

I'm going to try to review Bill Maher's "Religulous" without getting into religion. Is that OK with everybody? Good. I don't want to fan the flames of a holy war. The movie is about organized religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism, TV evangelism and even Scientology, with detours into pagan cults and ancient Egypt. Bill Maher, host, writer and debater, believes they are all crazy. He fears they could lead us prayerfully into mutual nuclear doom. He doesn't get around to Hinduism or Buddhism, but he probably doesn't approve of them, either.

This review is going to depend on one of my own deeply held beliefs: It's not what the movie is about, it's how it's about it. This movie is about Bill Maher's opinion of religion. He's very smart, quick and funny, and I found the movie entertaining, although sometimes he's a little mean to his targets. He visits holy places in Italy, Israel, Great Britain, Florida, Missouri and Utah, and talks with adherents of the religions he finds there, and others.

Or maybe "talks with" is not quite the right phrase. It's more that he lines them up and shoots them down. He interrupts, talks over, slaps on subtitles, edits in movie and TV clips, and doesn't play fair. Reader, I took a guilty pleasure in his misbehavior. The people he interviews are astonishingly forbearing, even most of the truckers in a chapel at a truck stop. I expected somebody to take a swing at Maher, but nobody did, although one trucker walked out on him. Elsewhere in the film, Maher walks out on a rabbi who approvingly attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran.

Maher had a Jewish mother and a Catholic father, and was raised as a Catholic until he was 13, when his father stopped attending services. He speaks with his elderly mother, who tells him, "I don't know why he did that. We never discussed it." He asks her what the family believed, before and after that event. "I don't know what we believed," she says. No, she's not confused. She just doesn't know.

Most everybody else in the film knows what they believe. If they don't, Maher does. He impersonates a Scientologist at the Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park, and says Scientology teaches that there was a race of Thetans several trillion years old (older than the universe, which is only 13.73 billion years) and that we are born with Thetans inside us, which can be detected by an E-Meter, on sale at your local Scientology center, and driven out by "auditing," which takes a long time and unfortunately costs money.

Many of Maher's confrontations involve logical questions about holy books. For example, did Jonah really live for three days in the belly of a large fish? There are people who believe it. Is the End of Days at hand? A U.S. senator says he thinks so. Will the Rapture occur in our lifetimes? Widespread agreement. Mormons believe Missouri will be the paradise ("Branson, I hope," says Maher). There are even some people who believe Alaska has been chosen as a refuge for the Saved After Armageddon. In Kentucky, Maher visits the Creation Museum, which features a diorama of human children playing at the feet of dinosaurs.

His two most delightful guests, oddly enough, are priests stationed in the Vatican. Between them, they cheerfully dismiss wide swaths of what are widely thought to be Catholic teachings, including the existence of Hell. One of these priests almost dissolves in laughter as he mentions various beliefs that I, as a child, solemnly absorbed in Catholic schools. {my boldface - sr} The other observes that when Italians were polled to discover who was the first person they would pray to in a crisis, Jesus placed sixth.

Maher meets two representations of Jesus. One is an actor at the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando. He stars in a re-enactment of the Passion, complete with crown of thorns, wounds, a crucifix, and Roman soldiers with whips. I suppose I understand why Florida tourists would take snapshots of this ordeal, but when Jesus stumbles, falls and is whipped by soldiers, I was a little puzzled why they applauded. The other Jesus, Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, believes he actually is the Second Coming -- i.e., Jesus made flesh in our time. He explains how the bloodline traveled from the Holy Land through France to Spain to Puerto Rico. He has 100,000 followers.

Why have I focused on the Christians? Maher also has interesting debates with Muslims about whether the Koran calls for the death of infidels. And he interviews an Israeli manufacturer who invents devices to sidestep the bans on Sabbath activity. Since the laws prohibit you from operating machines, for example, they've invented a "negative telephone." Here's how it works: All the numbers on the touchpad are constantly engaged. All you do is insert little sticks into holes beside the numbers you don't want to work.

I have done my job and described the movie. I report faithfully that I laughed frequently. You may very well hate it, but at least you've been informed. Perhaps you could enjoy the material about other religions, and tune out when yours is being discussed. That's only human nature.

Discuss.

Edited to add: What if Bill Maher is God? That would be so cool.

 

[Guest]

I can't wait to see it.

And not even for the reason that the movie topic pisses off my sister.

 

[jomar]

Just watched his latest show on dvr. If you're gonna watch Religulous, you also probably need to see Jesus Camp.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

A comedian making fun of religions. There's an original idea.

 

[3113]

A comedian making fun of religions. There's an original idea.

Sadly, they're the only ones who usually dare.

P.S. And it's not making fun of religions. Yes a lot of comedians do that. But few make fun of RELIGION period. They laugh at things they had to do as Catholics or Jews or whatever for holidays or in church, sometimes they even question the bible...but make fun of the whole idea of having a religion? How many really do that?

 

[DesertPirate]

I'm going to see An American Carol, much higher level of comedy and intellectual content.

 

[3113]

I'm going to see An American Carol, much higher level of comedy and intellectual content.

The movie making fun of Michael Moore? Been there, done that. Or didn't you see Team America?

But isn't that just like conservatives. Always going for something old and dated

 

[DesertPirate]

The movie making fun of Michael Moore? Been there, done that. Or didn't you see Team America?

But isn't that just like conservatives. Always going for something old and dated

Like bashing religion hasn't been going on for over 5000 years?

 

[cloudy]

Like bashing religion hasn't been going on for over 5000 years?

Like believing people lived to over 900 years old, were turned into "pillars of salt," and routinely got up out of their tombs and walked away after being dead for three days, just because some scraps of paper found out in the desert said so is rational?

 

[Saucy_Sage]

Like believing people lived to over 900 years old, were turned into "pillars of salt," and routinely got up out of their tombs and walked away after being dead for three days, just because some scraps of paper found out in the desert said so is rational?

Oh, so some watery tart throws you a sword and you think you're entitled to exercise sovereign power over the masses?

Blessed are the cheesemakers!

 

[DesertPirate]

Yawn

 

[cloudy]

Yawn

exactly right. I'll take comedy over outright fantasy any day.

Oh, so some watery tart throws you a sword and you think you're entitled to exercise sovereign power over the masses?

Blessed are the cheesemakers!

Makes just as much sense as any of the others.

 

[only_more_so]

Sadly, they're the only ones who usually dare.

P.S. And it's not making fun of religions. Yes a lot of comedians do that. But few make fun of RELIGION period. They laugh at things they had to do as Catholics or Jews or whatever for holidays or in church, sometimes they even question the bible...but make fun of the whole idea of having a religion? How many really do that?

"Dare"? You make it sound like a noble endeavor.

He's a hatemonger.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

Makes just as much sense as any of the others.

I'm penciling you in as the first Saucy_Sageist. Our new motto: "Makes just as much sense as any of the others."

 

[cloudy]

I'm penciling you in as the first Saucy_Sageist. Our new motto: "Makes just as much sense as any of the others."

People's Front of Judea vs. Judean People's Front...

six of one, half a dozen of the other.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

It's a movement! Who wants fish?

 

[TE999]

People's Front of Judea vs. Judean People's Front...

six of one, half a dozen of the other.

In WW1, the German Army had the words "Gott Mit Uns" on their belt buckles. They, like everyone else who invokes a deity to assist them, thought their cause was just. In WW2, religion was frowned upon in the German Army, but tolerated by the Nazis because so many men were believers.

God is on everyone's side...and no ones side.

 

[Saucy_Sage]

In WW1, the German Army had the words "Gott Mit Uns" on their belt buckles. They, like everyone else who invokes a deity to assist them, thought their cause was just. In WW2, religion was frowned upon in the German Army, but tolerated by the Nazis because so many men were believers.

God is on everyone's side...and no ones side.

People have believed that God was (or The Gods were, as appropriate) on their side since the beginning of religious belief.

 

[TE999]

People have believed that God was (or The Gods were, as appropriate) on their side since the beginning of religious belief.

Exactly. When conflicts erupt over how a deity (or deities) should be worshipped, that rather negates the compassionate and benign aspects of said diety(s).

By extension, organized religions are, in the main, somewhat of a farce.

 

[shereads]

Blessed are the cheesemakers!

Venezuelan Beavers' Milk?

 

[shereads]

People's Front of Judea vs. Judean People's Front...

six of one, half a dozen of the other.

"Where are you going to gestate the fetus? In a box?"

 

[DeeZire]

"Dare"? You make it sound like a noble endeavor.

He's a hatemonger.

Agnostics don't hate religious people, they pity them. I see more hatemongering going on in religious people than I see in Bill Maher. All Bill is trying to do is figure out why we all can't get along, and it appears religious intolerance is a big part of the problem. It's the religious people who start the wars, (see Sarah Palin's quote on God and Iraq) and it's the agnostics who try to stop them.

 

[shereads]

Well it's not playing in Savannah. "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" is in a dozen area theaters, but not one is playing "Religulous."

 

[shereads]

Agnostics don't hate religious people, they pity them.

I don't pity them. I fear them.

 

[shereads]

The trailer (offered in a choice of regular or kosher):

http://www.religulousmovie.net/