“Religulous” is a funny, sometimes serious, skeptic’s tale of religion. And I mean the true meaning of “skeptic.”
Bill Maher does a good job of slicing and dicing religion. He travels to the Vatican, Utah, and Israel. Maher identifies the roots of Christian legends (virgin birth, man as the son of God, and so on) as stemming from the Indian, Persian, and other myths which preceded Jesus by 1000 years. Much of the slicing and dicing is self-inflicted by the interviewees. Their statements, on their own, are…religulous.
The film is a brave step by Maher. In the short-term, it may provide some moral support for those who would be otherwise afraid to take a stand against religion.
In the long-run however, the film adds nothing to the mystic-skeptic debate. After slicing and dicing religion, Maher leaves the viewer with no positive alternative to religion.
In essence, Maher’s point is: Religion is obviously ridiculous. You’d be crazy to use it in your life. It is destructive. But if you want any guidance as to what to do, I just don’t know. And you don’t either. It is as if only Plato and Democritus existed. And the world never heard from Aristotle. Maher’s documentary is just another volley in the ongoing two-dimensional battle which should be a three man war.
Maher stressed the importance of the reason-based achievements of Galileo and Newton over the tales of the Bible. But instead of regarding logic and reason as the alternative to mysticism and skepticism; and more importantly as man’s fundamental means of survival, he relegates them to the role of weapons. To Maher, reason and logic are to be used only to crush religion and its faux certainty. To him, they are not to be used to establish certainty for the enhancement of human life.
Which is a real shame. (My guess is that Maher is an intelligent guy who wants to understand things. Even worse, he has to know better. To his credit, he had Leonard Peikoff as a guest on his show “Politically Incorrect” right after Dr. Peikoff published his book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand.)
Bottom line — go see “Religulous”, laugh, and have fun. Bless Bill Maher for making this film. At the same time, curse him for doing nothing more than continuing the mindless battle between mysticism and skepticism — and failing to highlight reason as the antidote to both.
