Religulous and the Quality Threesome

So I was the lucky guy who got to take Ginger and Eli to Religulous last night. Two important qualifications to that statement: 1. When I take a girl to a movie, she still pays. What else can you expect from a feminist Jew? 2. Quality threesome? You decide.

Religulous is funny. The problem with religulous is that it tries to have a point. Bill Maher going around arguing with Biblical Literalists provides for funny moments and an interesting, if not narrow, expose on fundamentalism.

But then Religulous tries to have a point. It has three points. Two of them are good, but then the bad point eats the good points and then the movie ends.

First the good points. The first good point of the movie is that it sucks that atheists are marginalized. Maher points out that about 16% of Americans identify themselves as atheist, but that this demographic has no political sway while much smaller demographics, Jews, blacks, unions, etc., have tons of sway. The analogy between ethnic minorities and atheists as a interest group isn't a great one, but, still, the point is well taken. Atheist-phobia, like some other phobias, is just another narrow-minded, squeamish intolerance.

The second good point is that people should be humble when attempting to answer life's difficult questions. Does God exist? What happens when we die? Is there a destiny heading towards Armageddon? The answers to these questions should be 'humility' and little more. If people realized that faith was based on their personal intuitions, not on some capital t-Truth, people might be less willing to die and kill over religious matters.

The problem is with Maher's third point: religion really sucks. In fact, religion will cause the end of the world. Religulous, after being pleasant for like 90 minutes, degrades into a Clock Orange style say 'religion' over and over again while showing disturbing images, namely mushroom clouds, to convince the audience that religion is bad.

This bad point swallows the good points for a couple reasons. First, while it may convince some atheists to come out of the closet by being so outspoken, Maher more than anything makes atheists look like people who hate religion. Making 'intolerance' intrinsic to atheism makes atheism seem like bad news bears. Plus, as pointed out by Ginger, by labeling religious progressives as enablers of religious fundamentalists, Maher leaves no room for a viable religious left. It can't be good for spreading peace, tolerance, etc if fundamentalists necessarily have a monopoly over religion.

Maher's general distaste for religion also jacks his point about humility. Maher states astutely that people should answer the big questions with humility. The problem is that Maher, when dialoguing with various people throughout the movie, doesn't ask what people think happens after death, etc. He instead focuses on the silliest parts of the Bible, the talking snake in the Garden of Eden, Jonah and the whale. Of course, Biblical Literalists can't say that Jonah didn't get eaten by the whale and then stupidly go on about miracles and whatever. So Maher's questions do provide a good attack on fundamentalist literalism. But, honestly, how many people's religious identities center around Jonah getting swallowed by a whale? Maher sets up straw men and dodges taking an intimate look at the way people actually grapple with difficult questions.

Also, for God's sake, it is not humble for Maher to declare that religion should die while showing nuclear bombs going off in the background. Militant atheism can be pretty dangerous too (see Mao, Stalin, et al). At the end of the day, religious people and atheists shouldn't be dicks.

That pretty much counts out Bill Maher.