Maher declares at the outset that he's just a reasonable man who seeks to raise the status of "doubt." While religion sells a silly/dangerous "invisible product," he says, "my product is doubt."
But by the end he declares, with fervor that would make Jimmy Swaggert proud, "Religion must die if mankind is to live." There is no doubt, no shades of gray. There are no examples of religion ever doing anything good, ever. He casts his opponents as not merely mistaken but grotesque and dangerous to your very existence.
Maher's product is not doubt. It's certainty -- a black-and-white world view that demonizes religion in the same way that some religious fundamentalists demonize those who differ from them.
Maher is a secular fundamentalist.
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I agree with you that there was a great deal left out in the movie, and Maher was far from up front about making his contacts. But if you listen to Maher in enough context, you will find that he, although not as fervently as Hitchens reported of himself, did look to religion in something of the same way as a child looks to Santa Claus. He just didn't move past that kind of faith experience.
I only know of him what I've seen on TV and in his book and now the movie. I think he DID move past 'that kind of faith experience' and is bitter about being duped.
Faith and religion are 2 completely different things. Religulous made me laugh and also made me hurt, primarily because people should use stories and teachings of all religions to better themselves and the world around them not as complete fact but as lessons. Sometimes in life individuals fail to realize that others are different and should be allowed to do so as long as they aren't harming anyone or themselves. Bill Maher brings to light that maybe we shouldn't believe everything we are taught or everything that has been written down, especially if it includes destroying our neighbor.
Also, there is nothing wrong with saying you believe in a higher power and it's fine to not understand why, but for indviduals saying its because of some old fable that was written down hundreds and thousands of years ago is a bit of a stretch.
If organized religion can throw their weight around with issues that affect the lives of many people, then Bill Maher is free to express his disdain for said religions. The borderline bigotry that mainstream religion encourages often leads to inequity in our society. Proposition 8 is a good example. Religion opposes any sort of non-conformity or free thought. It's sickening how docile and weak-willed billions of people in this world are, never questioning, never looking for diverse viewpoints on anything that might challenge their faith. It's also sickening how much influence religion has in politics, especially in America. I don't imagine atheists or agnostics have much of a voice in our "democracy". Until scientifically proven FACT and common sense prevail, we will continue our long slow spiral down the drain.
Most of the comments read above chastise Bill Maher rather than address the main topic: religion. Basically Bill is a Secular Humanist which means intelligent thought is a result of reason, fact, and science. In this day and age it is ridiculous to be wasting mind and energy on mythology. So many people have not advanced beyond what the ancient Greeks, Romans, indigenous peoples and others of those centuries whose mythologies were invented by unscientific beliefs passed for generations verbally, not from books since the masses were illiterate. Belief in GODS were also a means of population control by both political powers and churches. I encourage more serious thought as written by secular humanists in FREE INQUIRY and published bimonthly by the Council for Secular Humanism, a nonprofit educational corporation, P.O. Box 664, Amherst, N.Y. 14226-0664.
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