Religulous (Philosophical Films)

RELIGULOUS (2008)

PHILOSOPHICAL ISSUES: Religion and rationality

OTHER FILMS BY DIRECTOR LARRY CHARLES: Borat (2006), Masked and Anonymous (2003)

SYNOPSIS: Comedian Bill Maher’s documentary Religulous—a hybrid of the words “religion” and “ridiculous”—aims to expose the absurdities and dangers of religious belief. While his main targets are Christian, Jewish and Muslim fundamentalists, he also examines smaller religious groups that we might commonly refer to as cults. What they all have in common, Maher argues, is an adherence to irrational views without any proof, and an emphasis on blind faith and private conviction. The film is a sequence of five-to-ten minute interviews with members of religious groups, during which Maher tries to get his subjects to defend the most outlandish components of their religion. Maher’s own skeptical view of religion is, as he describes it, “The Gospel of I don’t know,” which he develops in monologues interspersed between the interviews.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. In the director’s commentary, Maher and Charles discuss the angry public reaction to their movie, and state that people did not want to hear that their religious beliefs were B.S. Is that surprising?

2. A fundamentalist Christian in the Trucker’s Chapel states defends his faith saying “When I’ve seen what I’ve seen, you can’t change my mind.” Assuming that his experience was profound, does that justify him in being resistant to any change of mind upon further consideration?

3. Throughout the film a few believers justified their faith with something like Pascal’s wager: if they disbelieve and they’re wrong, they risk eternal punishment. Is there anything wrong with that rationale?

4. In his interview with Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Research Project, a caption on the screen says “93% of scientists in the American National Academy of Sciences are atheist or agnostic.” Collins, though, is a conservative Christian believer, who holds that the New Testament is something close to an eyewitness account of Jesus. Maher asks if that would stand up as absolute fool-proof evidence, and Collins responds that Maher is setting up a standard of proof that is almost impossible to meet. In the directors commentary, Larry Charles states that Collins was a disappointment since “he created an almost convoluted logic for himself to justify the existence of Jesus.” Do the New Testament accounts stand up as reasonable evidence as Collins suggests?

5. Pastor Jeremiah Cummings, former member of the R&B group The Blue Notes, argues that God does not want us to be poor. In response, Maher notes that religious leaders and rock stars both dress flamboyantly. What’s Maher’s point, and is it relevant to the credibility and value of religion?

6. John Westcott (reformed homosexual) states that no one is born gay. In the director’s commentary, Maher says of Westcott himself that “You don’t have to have the highest level of gaydar to get that this guy is right there.” What’s Maher’s point, and is it relevant to the credibility and value of religion?

7. The owner of the Catholic merchandise store told Maher of the miracles that God performed in his life, and how God listens to us all when we pray. Maher responded with a comparison between belief in Santa Clause and belief in God: “[Santa is] one man flying around the world dropping presents down a chimney; that’s ridiculous. But one man hearing everybody murmur to him at the same time, that I get.” Is he comparison valid?

8. Maher states that one of his favorite nonsense stories from the Bible is Jonah living inside a whale. He notes that believers unfailingly answer that “The Bible does not say whale, it says big fish,” as though this makes the story more credible. Maher also states that if a child was raised in an environment in which fairy tales and Bible stories were switched with each other, the child wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Do stories like Jonah undermine the reasonableness of religion as Maher suggests?

9. The film displays quotations by Franklin that “Lighthouses are more useful than Churches,” by Adams that “This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it,” and by Jefferson that “Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man” In the director’s commentary, Charles notes that a part of the movie that people found most astounding was that the U.S. founding fathers were not religious. What’s so shocking about these quotes?

10. U.S. senator Mark Pryor from Arkansas did a campaign ad in which he said that the most important lessons in life come from the Bible. In his interview with Pryor, Maher stated that in the Ten Commandments, the prohibitions against murder and stealing are the only critical ones, and other moral rules critically important today were left off the list, such as prohibitions against child abuse, torture and rape. He then asks, “can you think of anything else that we still cleave to from the Bronze Age?” What is your answer to Maher’s question?

11. According to Maher, among the 32 most industrialized countries, more people in the U.S. doubt evolution than every other country on the list except Turkey. Ken Ham of the Creation Museum discusses their displays that depict dinosaurs and people living together in the same time period some 5,000 years ago. By contrast, Father George Coyne of the Vatican Observatory stated that evolution is an historic fact and that Pope John Paul II himself said that Darwinian evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis. According to Coyne, since the scriptures were written so long before modern science, there can’t be any science in scripture. If Catholics can embrace evolution, why can’t Protestant fundamentalists like Ken Ham?

12. Reginald Foster, senior Vatican priest, criticizes people who accept many traditional discussions in the bible as literal. He states that the standard doctrine of hell “is all gone, it’s all finished.” He also notes that a lot of traditional views of Jesus are just “nice stories.” Maher asked him “how do you convince people of what’s the true faith,” to which Foster responded “You don’t; you forget it. You just have to live and die [leaving them] with their stupid ideas.” Is Foster right that such traditional beliefs are so entrenched in believers’ minds that they cannot change?

13. Maher says that the traditional biography of Jesus parallels the lives of earlier mythological figures, such as Krishna, Mithra and Horace. Common elements include a virgin birth, baptism, temptation in a desert, healing the sick and blind, casting out demons, walking on water, raising a man from the dead, having 12 disciples, being crucified and resurrecting on the third day. In the director’s commentary, Maher and Charles note that this fact was the biggest shocker for viewers of the film. Assuming that these parallels are accurate, does this create a credibility problem for the traditional notion of Jesus?

14. At one point in the film Maher dresses up like a homeless man and starts preaching the doctrines of Scientology in a park. The people in the crowd think he’s crazy. What’s Maher’s larger point, and is it a valid criticism of religion?

15. Maher lists several Mormon doctrines that he believes defy credibility, such as that God is a physical man who lives on a planet and had sex with Mary, that righteous dark-skinned people can become light-skinned, celestial marriage (getting to rule over your own planet with your spouse after death), baptism of the dead, that temple underwear protects people, and that Jesus came to America in 400 A.D. to preach to the natives. Two ex-Mormons tell Maher that if you doubt Mormon teachings then you commit social suicide by losing family and friends. Is this an adequate explanation for why Mormons or similar religious people continue to believe what they do?

16. Rabbi Shmuel Strauss displays a series of gadgets that enable Orthodox Jews to keep the Sabbath, yet still perform some tasks such as dialing a phone or moving in an automated wheel chair. How, from Maher’s perspective, does this show the craziness of the orthodox religion?

17. In his interview with Jose Miranda, who claims to be the second coming of Jesus, Maher asks why God always speaks privately to prophets, rather than directly to the world at large. Is there a good answer to Maher’s question?

18. Maher interviews a Muslim women and Amsterdam about intolerance within Islam. She states that she doesn’t like the image that if Muslims don’t like what you say the kill you. Geert Wilders, a Dutch Parliament member, states that Islam is a violent religion that gives people the choice to either convert or be killed. In the DVD extras, Harold Bloom discusses the expansion of Islam in similar terms. Maher says that moderate Muslims commonly say that Islam is a religion of peace and that the more violent components of their tradition are all politics. How is any of this an indictment against Islam or religion in general?

19. Maher visits the Rude Man of Cerne Abbas, a chalk-covered trench on a hillside in the shape of a naked man that traces back at least 300 years. According to Mahar, its upkeep has been perpetuated by tradition, just as all religious beliefs are. How is this a criticism of religion?

20. Maher concludes stating the following: “The plain fact is that religion must die for mankind to live. The hour is getting very late to be able to indulge in having key decisions made by religious people, by irrationalists, by those who would steer the ship of state not by a compass but by the equivalent of reading the entrails of a chicken. Faith means making a virtue out of not thinking. It’s nothing to brag about. And those who preach faith and enable and elevate it are intellectual slaveholders, keeping mankind in a bondage to fantasy and nonsense that has spawned and justified so much lunacy and destruction. Religion is dangerous because it allows human beings who don't have all the answers to think that they do. Most people would think it's wonderful when someone says, 'I'm willing Lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do.' Except that since there are no gods actually talking to us, that void is filled in by people with their own corruptions and limitations and agendas. And anyone who tells you that they know, they just know what happens when you die, I promise you, you don't. How can I be so sure? Because I don't know, and you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for man to have about the big questions, is not the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of religion, but doubt. Doubt is humble and that is what man needs to be, considering that human history is just a litany of getting shit dead wrong. This is why rational people, anti-religionists must end their timidity, and come out of the closet, and assert themselves, and those who consider themselves only moderately religious, really need to look in the mirror and realize that the solace and comfort that religion brings you actually comes at a terrible price. If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, you'd resign in protest. To do otherwise is to be an enabler -- a mafia wife -- with the true devils of extremism that draw their legitimacy from the billions of their fellow travelers. If the world does come to an end here, or wherever, or if it limbs into the future decimated by the effects of a religion inspired nuclear terrorism, lets remember what the real problem was: that we learned how to precipitate mass death, before we got pass the neurologist disorder of wishing for it. That's it. Grow up, or die.” Is Maher right about any of this?