Movie Review: Religulous

***Editor's Note: POF took a field trip last night to see Religulous at our local theatre with the intent to blog about our thoughts. I am the first, but stay tuned for reactions of the other Porkers. ***

The only thing I had seen about Religulous prior to seeing the actual film last night was the movie poster, which had a picture of Bill Maher on a piece of toast, a la the many sightings of Jesus and Mary on various everyday items. (Click here to see a story about the Virgin Mary under a Chicago overpass.) I like Bill Maher, and he mostly pleased with this candid and hilarious film that was mostly about asking questions.

As you might be able to tell by now, this blog is exactly about this sort of thing - challenging the ridiculous parts of religion that usually tend to cloud the real stuff. The "real stuff" being a connection with the universe and each other. Maher is unabashed about his questions, and even more so about calling people out when their answers are laughably absurd (like believing in a "talking snake".)

Maher is very well researched to provide quick comebacks to some of the typical answers that people give to justify these beliefs. In particular, it was interesting to me to hear about the striking parallels between the characteristics of Jesus and those of the Egyptian god Horus. I think very few people could doubt the contradictions that Maher points out about religion, including a senior Vatican priest.

What Maher doesn't focus on is the benefit to faith. I think this is OK, since his movie is likely intended to shock people out of their heretical belief systems. Early in the movie, he points out that people intend for religion to do such good things, but it always ends up with people doing really bad things for their religion or in the name of their religion or because of their religion. This point comes to fruition in then ending, which blames religion for war, global warming, and every other imaginable evil in the world. Although a bit sudden and underdeveloped, this ending does cause the viewer to think about what the unintended consequences of their beliefs might be.

What was particularly unsettling for me was Maher's contention that even conscious, moderate religious followers are contributing to a system which ultimately is causing fundamentalism and thus the bad consequences described above. My instant reaction was to disagree. Why should it matter that I take communion on Sunday and pray to a God that is clearly made up from thousands of years of mythology, if I'm not hating others for their religious beliefs, or lack thereof? But, the reason this is so unsettling is that I see he has a point.

No matter how offended you get by the movie (I thought it was offensive in a hilariously irreverent way, but that's just my opinion), you have to appreciate it for the questions that it asks, and the ultimate theory that it concludes. Maher is just a guy who is trying to understand this whole religious thing and ultimately I think he is trying to make the world a better place by doing so. (Tell THAT to the people he interviewed...something tells me they won't believe it!)

Is it sunset yet?

The holy month of Ramadan is just about ending. We are actually in the last ten days, which are the most holy, and call on Muslims to pray more and be more vigilant in remembering God (or Allah as is said in Arabic) than we have been in the rest of the month. So what is Ramadan? Well, its kind of like Yom Kippur, Lent, and your birthday all mixed together. Lots of Muslims look forward to Ramadan all year. They prepare. They count days. Its like waiting to turn 5 or 21. You just anticipate it with giddiness. And when it gets here how do you celebrate? Well, there sure as heck is no cake.

During the month of Ramadan, Muslims don’t eat or drink anything from sunrise to sunset. We also can’t smoke, have sex, or do any other “fun” things out there. But don’t worry… once the sun goes down all bets are off. This year the typical day of fasting in Ramadan is roughly from 5 am to 7 pm. God was especially judicious when He came up with Ramadan because it is on the lunar calendar. This means that Ramadan is at a different time of year each year. So people all over the world will at some point in their life have the joy of fasting in the middle of summer in the sweltering heat with 16 hours of daylight. (Well except for those living along the equator, but they are already lucky with living in the tropics and all) I am not really sure how Ramadan works out for folks living in Iceland who have like months of night. Hmm. So like Jews may fast for Yom Kippur and Christians may fast during Lent, we fast during Ramadan.

The whole point of the month is to remind Muslims of God’s presence in their lives and to ask Him for forgiveness. This brings us back to the last ten nights. These are said to be the most holy nights in the whole Muslim calendar. The 27th of Ramadan in particular is rumored to be the night when the Holy Qu’ran was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. As a result, Muslims often spend the night awake, praying all night to ask for various different things such as health, forgiveness, and blessings from God. When I was 8 I stayed up for a bit and asked for a Furby; Allah, in all His mercy spared me from ever getting one.

I am often asked by my friends who are of the non-fasting variety if I get hungry. Well, duh. Of course I get hungry. That is kind of the point. Aside from fasting being a way to remember God, it is also a way to remember all the blessings you have. Like the Internet, so you can look up the exact time of sunset on http://www.time.gov/, or cable television including the weather channel so you know when sunrise and sunset are the next day. It is also 4 weeks (roughly) to decide what vices you want to keep and what vices you would rather lose. This year I am focusing on giving up school work as my vice. (I am a 3L in law school after all)

Of course, knowing if Ramadan has started or ended is a whole other debacle for my next post....

The Pope? Gay? Whaaaaat?

Tony Alamo's polygamist, pedaphilic cult thinks that:
"• Homosexuals are Satan’s tools.
• The pope is a homosexual who could be the Antichrist himself."

Who knew?

Well, at least those who oppose gay marriage/civil unions and support sodomy laws are in good company in their opinion of gay folks.

Convert Me, baby, Be Gentle

Oh God, what I would do to one of those chicks on the bible tracts you get when you're walking down the street. There's some aphorism on the front like "Would you like to know more about the bible?" and I'm all: No, but I'd like to no more about your shoulder blades, baby.

Proseltyzing disgusts me. I just want to throw those pamphlets away, but how can I throw out those hot little things on the front, with their home-knit sweaters, and fuck-me-I'm-a-virgin curiosity.

All I'm saying is: hey girl, wanna read Song of Solomon? We'll have to go back to my place for the text. I keep that shit in the tub.

Signs, signs, everywhere the signs.

Have you ever been mulling something over in your head, only to have life drop the answer right in your lap? You can call it what you want - fate, the Holy Spirit, kismet, serendipity, whatever. I've definitely had this happen before, and the most notable of these instances come in the context of life saying "yep, you're on the right track." What's more difficult though, are the times when the answer is "stupid, how could you ever have thought of doing THAT!?!?"

I mean, if you're thinking about doing something, and then life drops the path to do it or some other reassurance in your lap, its a simple answer - the universe is confirming that you're in the right place at the right time. (Editor's note: if this all sounds very new age for a Christian, see my earlier post re: New Age spirituality.) But, when the answer seems to contradict what we're thinking/feeling, this is harder for us to accept. Why is that?

Is it because we're stubborn humans who refuse to believe that what we want, when we want it, is incorrect? I think what is more likely is the whole uncertainty of it all. Let me paint an example of something that recently happened, which I fully admit is trite and meaningless. But, you didn't think I was going to detail my innermost pending decisions did you?

So, in the past few weeks, there have been a couple of times that I wanted to get fast food. I try to eat as little fast food as possible, but am a horrible failure at this task. So, like many who are trying to restrain themselves, I make up excuses for why I need it or why it makes sense for me to eat fast food. Nevertheless, in both situations as I had just talked myself into doing it, I had critical failures that prevented me for doing so - in one instance I forgot my wallet; in the other, my car wouldn't start. Not long after the second instance I decided that God was preventing me from doing what I knew I shouldn't be doing - indulging in high-calorie junk.

So, this example is obviously not very life-changing. But, it shows how easy it can be to say "this isn't a sign; it's a coincidence." In fact, when my car couldn't start, I promptly found someone to jump me so I could disobey God's command against eating fast food, and went straight to Taco Bell.

But, what do you do when a sign presents itself that is in opposition to a life decision that is greater than choosing to eat more healthfully? Do you listen? Do you ignore? How do you know the difference between a sign and a coincidence? I tend to live by the philosophy that if I'm at all hesitant about something, then I shouldn't do it. In that case, I tend to see "signs" as either a signal from God or just my mind creating a more clear excuse to prevent me from doing something that I subconsciously know I don't want to do anyway.

In any case, if I haven't confused you all by now, I welcome your thoughts! How do YOU distinguish between a sign and a coincidence?

God must own stock in: The Wave

Ok, I know no one is making a profit off of it, per say, but I'm pretty sure God owns stock in The Wave. My friend Jen says that at the University of Wisconsin, the wave not only circles the stadium twice, it then reverses, then splits and meets on the other end. I mean, the Holy Spirit is definately a part of THAT action.

What I love about the wave is that it's an individual activity that has enormous community benefit. Admit it - the excitement of when the wave gets going, the anticipation of it coming back around to you, the simple joy of waving your hands in the air and yelling a fun "woo" while doing so. They are all simple gifts from God. You can thank Him later.

Politics is their religion

I've tried (unlike Ziek) to keep politics out of my posts, but I've come to a point where I must say something. In reading recently about Sarah Palin's comments about the Iraq war being "a task from God", I became infruriated with more of what I've talked about before - people using religion to condone their (or their party's) bad actions/beliefs.

I can guarantee that God didn't want us to go to another country to kill people over oil. Or I mean, God didn't want us to kill people over spite. I mean, God didn't want us to kill people to ensure that our president would be in prime position to secure a second term in office. Well...pick you poison. I shouldn't be so critical, I guess. It's hard to remember ALL of the ten commandments when trying so hard to use religion for political gain.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think politicians who are religious should certainly not hide that fact and are correct to consult God while living thier lives, which includes running a government or campaigning for office. But, what too frequently happens is that these people will do a great job of talking the talking, but completely forget to walk the walk.

I even suspect that this one of the main reasons that Republicans have so heinously tried to appropriate religion as their own domain. The national platform of the GOP has time after time proven that it is incapable of actually walking the walk.

What Would Jesus Do? Well, I don't know exactly what Jesus would do in every situation, but I know this: Jesus wouldn't treat women, minorities, homosexuals unequally. Jesus wouldn't hoard his paycheck and not be willing to share it with people less fortunate. If Jesus knew the environment was dying because of his industrialism, he wouldn't turn a blind eye, hire fringe scientists to make fake reports to cover up the damage he'd done, and ignore the problem (Al Sharpton and Pat Robertson agree with me on this one.) And Jesus certainly would not start the Iraq war. Not in a million years.

So, instead, they pick one thing Jesus definately wouldn't do, and they make it seem like the most important religious and political issue of our time. They make the other side seem completely devoid of religion. They make politics more important than God by simply using God as a tool to achieve their selfish desires. Clearly this subject hits me emotionally. I welcome all thoughts and comments.