Religulous [DVD]

There's a new kind of film on the block. And Religulous is it. To call it a documentary is a palpable nonsense : its a documentary in the same way that a film without any CGI is a documentary - a record of staged events engineered to create and further an opinion : in effect, Religulous is a filmed thesis, a visual presentation of facts, scripture and evidence to reinforce a point of view. After years of being forced to sing hymns to Spacemen I don't believe in, and years of pledging allegiance to a flag people know nothing of, then I - like many people - see religion as a form of mental abuse, an indoctrination of a belief that could be very false, a wilful deception.

Aside from this, though, the film is the vehicle for the viewpoint of Bill Maher who is both smart, erudite, and very funny. There is an element of manipulation in the presentation, but no more and no less than any other film or documentary. It is never anything less than entertaining and engaging, and the viewer is never more than a moment from the humour of absurdity or laugh out loud contradiction.

Whilst some of you may see it as a tempting Religious Satire taking its cue from Borat, Religulous operates in a different and far more sophisticated sphere : instead of defacing the Trump Tower, Bill Maher simply takes himself and a camera crew to meet various philosophers and figures, many religious, some profoundly not so, and asks questions. Instead of being a parody and using that to reveal peoples innermost selves, and let their answers, and justifications - trying to rationalise the irrational - speak for themselves.

As a fierce agnostic - that is, someone who relies on evidence, and were I to meet God, I'd believe in her - this film is neither pro- nor anti-religion, but an exploration looking for an explanation : why do people believe? And why do people believe in religions - and have faith - and what is faith but an opinion without supporting evidence?

Maher travels the world meeting all manner of believers - claimed reincarnations of Christ, actors playing Jesus in a theme park, Jewish Uberinventors who go to extraordinary lengths to circumvent the Judian beliefs of prohibited Sunday Activities, a former Satanist, Jesus Truckers, and many other deominations. The film is edited with a fierce temper and literacy that pushes the envelope of interpretation, if nothing else it is a masterful example of how to manipulate the image to further the

Ultimately, Religulous is a brave polemic that concludes with a rousing call to arms that connects the illogical inconsistencies of beliefs with the ultimate, disastrous consequences : Maher calls to arms the non-believers and suggests that not only is there nothing wrong with doubt, but that it is more honest to state you do not know than to suggest that you do know. In conclusion though, Religulous is an extremely funny movie that decimates the subject with a ruthlessly logical viciousness and reveals to the believers exactly how absurd their beliefs are to the eyes of others.

But what if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? Well, the question is, which one? Do I believe in Thor, and Buddha? Do I believe in everything in the hope that one of them is right? What if we are all wrong and the One True God is in fact Quark, a 800 mile wide Nuclear Duck that made us all?

Well, I don't know, but at least I know that I don't know. And neither does Bill, but finding out that doubt is a virtue is a journey that is relentless funny and always interesting. It's a different kind of light, but a light worth seeing.

This brilliant documentary should be part of the educational curriculum in schools. The fact that it probably never will be is proof of Bill's argument.
In a thoughtful, sometimes hilarious, but always careful interview process, Bill takes us on a journey into the cognitive dissonances of blind-sided faith and its implications for the future of mankind.
To remain an open-minded questioning human being is to celebrate the higher cortical functions with which most of us have been endowed. What Bill shows us in this well-woven film, is that man-driven certainties and religious extremism will very likely bring humanity to utter destruction. That is, until the human race grows up and matures beyond its infantile preoccupation with fundamentalist Religion.
One of the most compelling moments early on in the film is when Bill interviews a group of truck driving evangelical Christians in a road side cafe in the USA. After a heated discussion about their Bible-driven belief system, they finally agree to disagree and he thanks them for being Christ-like and not 'Christian'. This is arguably, one of the most sensitive moments of the piece.
I would suggest that this DVD should be part of one's desert island survival kit.

And the book I would recommend for the really open minded would be Karen Armstrong's "The Case for God: What Religion really means".

The Case for God: What Religion Really Means

Humour is a very powerful weapon to get over some key messages and in terms of looking at religion it has to be employed for two basic reasons. Firstly, if a direct and frank approach to questioning religion is currently employed the barriers go up and two thousand years of blind indoctrination kicks in with the predictable consequences. Secondly, questioning some of the outlandish views trotted out in this DVD can only really be done through wry humour. How can you interview, in all seriousness, a reasonably educated individual and discuss in depth the historical FACT of the talking snake, the ten commandments that were chiselled into a rock (that was subsequently dropped and broken - Doh!) by a bronze age deity who created a trillion planets in one day (most of which can't be seen by the naked eye) but uses basic stone masonry and burning shrubs to communicate to his imperfect and flawed creations (well, one of them anyway - you can't have everyone in on the secret because without belief you have nothing - QED), dinosaurs being used as daily transportation by our early ancestors (despite the existence of fossils, apparently placed in the ground tirelessly by one of the many deities that are still worshipped, purely to give mankind something to dig up and puzzle over), a wooden boat that had all 6 million species on the planet on it at one time and in one location, a virgin birth, angels with wings (gravity is so awkward in heaven) and so on and so on.

The answer is you can't. What Bill does here is ask a wide variety of people why they hang onto these bronze age beliefs and gently points out the contradictions and absurdities with a good humoured non-confrontational belly laugh. So for an hour or so you get the priceless daftness of the Holy Land theme park (imagine Santa's grotto but with a bit of crucifixion), the creationist museum (Flintstones for adults, but less real), the Islamic cleric with Kashmir by Zeppelin as a ring tone on his mobile (I'm not making this up) and the bizarre Jewish faculty for designing clunky machines that allow no work to be done on the Sabbath. All of which is very, very funny.

Naturally the joke of religion, in reality, isn't remotely funny and the final 5 minute peroration of this excellent DVD is chilling and frightening in equal measures. This is the film's power - you laugh and then you are dragged back to the grim reality - religion, it says, is extremely dangerous and Bill's message is stark and portentous. So, rather than force feed children in schools tales of a lowly carpenter, who apparently heals a few blind people with grit* to if you designed the, or wooden arks, angels, demons in red jump suits with little horns and talking snakes we should show them this DVD as, unfortunately, they will have the grim reality one day of squaring up, without humour, to the growing dangers that Bill describes so eloquently in this film.

According to the film a majority of American's believe that THE RAPTURE! is coming in the next few years (note the sexual connotation of the word), and the World will end immediately as a result (which is seen as a jolly good thing if you are in the Jesus club) - so order your copy of this hilarious but hard hitting DVD now as it may be the last laugh you get.

* Why grit? If you are literally the God that designed the eye and, being a God, the most intelligent super being ever (more so than say Superman or one of the Incredibles)why not just magic up a few new eyes..? For a God, the knowledge of the human eye seems a bit lacking and the prescription of gravel a bit bizarre.