by Gina Guglielmo
This is a warning for people belonging to any of the following groups:
• Worshippers at roadside trucker's chapels
• Fundamentalists who believe every word of The Bible
• Jews for Jesus who now own religious articles store
• Muslims - especially those who stole the Temple Mount
• Scientologists with names like Cruise and Travolta
• Cannabis worshippers
• Mormons from Joseph Smith down to Salt Lake City security guards
• Born-again gays who think they can "get over it
You probably will not find Bill Maher's documentary Religulous amusing.
I agree with The Washington Post's capsule review of the film which states that Maher's satire is flawed because he lacks sufficient knowledge about his topic to denigrate it effectively. Neither does he grasp the high purpose of satire. Chaucer, for the most part a gentle satirist, pokes fun at the foibles of his fellow man; Maher sneers at them. He also lacks the "righteous indignation" displayed by Jonathan Swift, a "harsh satirist," who rages against hypocrites and tyrants; Maher is just plain mean-spirited and patronizing.
His unrelenting pomposity is worsened by a careless and jokey treatment of facts. For example while comparing the synchronous religions that sprang up around the Mediterranean in the First Century, he implies, using day-glo graphics, that lots of gods were also born on Dec. 25th, walked on water and rose from the dead. His interviewees are often set up to look like fools such as the curmudgeon priest he accosts in front of St. Peter's Basilica; the giddy woman who cannot wait to ride a white horse back to earth after "the rapture; or the rabbi who comically keeps shouting "Let me finish" meaning not a joke but his defense of agreeing with Ahmadinijad about The Holocaust.. Trying to squeeze out as many laughs as possible, Maher travels to Bibleland, a religious theme park where he can score a double whammy mocking both the simple faith of the performers and the customers.
Basically he makes a critical error between the concepts, Childish and Childlike, and in this he is consistent. Childish denotes immature, willfully naïve, petulant behavior ; child-like is something else. A very intelligent person can be child-like in his world view demonstrating a simplicity of belief and life style. Obviously, in his thirteen years as a Catholic before his father withdrew the family en masse, he sadly was not touched by the beauty and simplicity of the gospel stories. Cut off from this tradition, he also could not later use his obvious intelligence to examine the teachings of his father's Christianity or his mother's Judaism as he grew into maturity. In his criticism he harped continuously on the talking snake in the Garden of Eden and the Virgin Birth but did not seem to have a clue about the metaphorical nature of mythology by which Christians, Jews, Muslims and other believers can reconcile religious texts with modern scientific thinking.
Nonetheless, the film does have merits. Maher interviews a few people who are not dwelling on the fringes. The inclusion of scenes with his mother and sister, which were ironically filmed before stain-glass windows, were attempts to shine more light on Maher's religious development. Some of his jokes even displayed an ecumenical bent: "Being a Christian and a Jew had advantages. When I went to Confession, I brought my lawyer: 'Bless me Father for I have sinned; you know Harry Cohen?'" One cameo appearance by a theologian actually offered a rebuttal to his anti-religious harangues with a clear explanation of Teilhard de Jardin's reconciliation of The Bible with Evolutionary theories. But then the curtain dropped again.
Yet Maher did proclaim two messages: one at the beginning, one at the end. While dunning the simple faith of the worshippers at the Trucker Chapel in an early part of the film, he said he was peddling defiant doubt on every street corner. This is a far cry from Tennyson's, "There is more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." At the conclusion, after many clips of suicide bombings and other atrocities, Maher infers that the evils of the world might stem from imbecilic religious worship. However, instead of putting the blame on demagogues who have distorted the messages of most major creeds and in fact used religion to seize power even in exalted places like the U.S. Presidency, Maher blames the ignorant sheep. If we want to avoid Armageddon, according to the Gospel of Bill, we have to "Grow up!"
Actually, it is amazing this incendiary movie found producers. Maher may have had crusading intentions as well in taking on this epic theme, but as far as leading us into a better place, he really missed the Ark.
This is a warning for people belonging to any of the following groups:
• Worshippers at roadside trucker's chapels
• Fundamentalists who believe every word of The Bible
• Jews for Jesus who now own religious articles store
• Muslims - especially those who stole the Temple Mount
• Scientologists with names like Cruise and Travolta
• Cannabis worshippers
• Mormons from Joseph Smith down to Salt Lake City security guards
• Born-again gays who think they can "get over it
You probably will not find Bill Maher's documentary Religulous amusing.
I agree with The Washington Post's capsule review of the film which states that Maher's satire is flawed because he lacks sufficient knowledge about his topic to denigrate it effectively. Neither does he grasp the high purpose of satire. Chaucer, for the most part a gentle satirist, pokes fun at the foibles of his fellow man; Maher sneers at them. He also lacks the "righteous indignation" displayed by Jonathan Swift, a "harsh satirist," who rages against hypocrites and tyrants; Maher is just plain mean-spirited and patronizing.
His unrelenting pomposity is worsened by a careless and jokey treatment of facts. For example while comparing the synchronous religions that sprang up around the Mediterranean in the First Century, he implies, using day-glo graphics, that lots of gods were also born on Dec. 25th, walked on water and rose from the dead. His interviewees are often set up to look like fools such as the curmudgeon priest he accosts in front of St. Peter's Basilica; the giddy woman who cannot wait to ride a white horse back to earth after "the rapture; or the rabbi who comically keeps shouting "Let me finish" meaning not a joke but his defense of agreeing with Ahmadinijad about The Holocaust.. Trying to squeeze out as many laughs as possible, Maher travels to Bibleland, a religious theme park where he can score a double whammy mocking both the simple faith of the performers and the customers.
Basically he makes a critical error between the concepts, Childish and Childlike, and in this he is consistent. Childish denotes immature, willfully naïve, petulant behavior ; child-like is something else. A very intelligent person can be child-like in his world view demonstrating a simplicity of belief and life style. Obviously, in his thirteen years as a Catholic before his father withdrew the family en masse, he sadly was not touched by the beauty and simplicity of the gospel stories. Cut off from this tradition, he also could not later use his obvious intelligence to examine the teachings of his father's Christianity or his mother's Judaism as he grew into maturity. In his criticism he harped continuously on the talking snake in the Garden of Eden and the Virgin Birth but did not seem to have a clue about the metaphorical nature of mythology by which Christians, Jews, Muslims and other believers can reconcile religious texts with modern scientific thinking.
Nonetheless, the film does have merits. Maher interviews a few people who are not dwelling on the fringes. The inclusion of scenes with his mother and sister, which were ironically filmed before stain-glass windows, were attempts to shine more light on Maher's religious development. Some of his jokes even displayed an ecumenical bent: "Being a Christian and a Jew had advantages. When I went to Confession, I brought my lawyer: 'Bless me Father for I have sinned; you know Harry Cohen?'" One cameo appearance by a theologian actually offered a rebuttal to his anti-religious harangues with a clear explanation of Teilhard de Jardin's reconciliation of The Bible with Evolutionary theories. But then the curtain dropped again.
Yet Maher did proclaim two messages: one at the beginning, one at the end. While dunning the simple faith of the worshippers at the Trucker Chapel in an early part of the film, he said he was peddling defiant doubt on every street corner. This is a far cry from Tennyson's, "There is more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds." At the conclusion, after many clips of suicide bombings and other atrocities, Maher infers that the evils of the world might stem from imbecilic religious worship. However, instead of putting the blame on demagogues who have distorted the messages of most major creeds and in fact used religion to seize power even in exalted places like the U.S. Presidency, Maher blames the ignorant sheep. If we want to avoid Armageddon, according to the Gospel of Bill, we have to "Grow up!"
Actually, it is amazing this incendiary movie found producers. Maher may have had crusading intentions as well in taking on this epic theme, but as far as leading us into a better place, he really missed the Ark.
