Religulous is to religion as rape is to sex. Like the versions of religion and religious people in Bill Maher's Religulous which opens Friday, rape is a terrible thing which must be recognized and combated. But it hardly defines the range of possible sexual experience. Neither do the violent, small-minded, fear-driven forms of religion upon which Maher focuses define religious experience. So for starters, let's stop giving Maher credit for attacking all religion. He doesn't.
Instead, Maher selects the worst of religion and compares it to the best of secularism -- hardly a fair fight. But he does make some very important points in this wickedly funny, if totally lopsided analysis of religion. And it's the people who will be most offended by what he has to say that should listen the most. Why? Because religion shouldn't get a free pass and it certainly hasn't earned one.
Maher doesn't have to go far, or look too hard, to find examples of truly frightening versions of religion, versions which are likely to get most of us killed. In fact, more people are dying today in the name of religion than any time since the crusades. And the more religious you are, the more that should bother you. It's up to the faithful to clean up the mess that we have too often made of faith. Simply saying things like, "that isn't real Judaism, Christianity, or Islam" is no answer. Religions are, as their adherents live them, and history will judge if we brought honor or shame to the tradition we love.
Religulous misses the fact that while religion is among the most effective tools for mobilizing the ugliest stuff inside us and rationalizing some of the most hateful and violent acts, it also does the opposite. There is no force in human experience which has evoked the capacity for love, hope and altruism like religion. Missing that, makes Maher and Religulous a great deal like the blind man holding the elephant's tusk and describing the animal as hard and smooth. He is 100% correct about 20% of the elephant.
Maher insists that he is all about doubt, about the willingness to say "I don't know". But he demonstrates no doubt about his own passionately held position. He never wonders if in fact he may not have reached the correct conclusion about the toxicity of religion. So ironically, Maher's journey of spiritual inquiry, which would have been a wonder to behold, becomes one man's pilgrimage of secularism among equally zealous people who have found absolutist faith much as he has found absolutist secularity.
If this had been a real journey, then Maher and the rest of us, would have ended up somewhere other than where we began. Alas, that is not the case with Religulous. And as a result, the film will mostly preach to a choir of angry secularists and never engage the vast majority of believers who could use the help of someone as smart and funny as Maher to help them see that questioning can be as sacred as believing. Of course to do that, he would need to start questioning his own disbelief as much as he questions others' faith.
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Author, radio and TV talk show host, and President of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, Brad Hirschfield is the author of 
Who cares if a good deed is done in the name of religion, if I have to take a bad one with it. Since good and evil are both done in the name of religion doesn't that cancel out its role as a moral compass? If it can't do that what is it really good for?
I think the criticism on religion was well deserved, and I think people like him need to accentuate the dangers of fanaticism.
Even many of us secularists cannot even fathom (because we tend not to believe nonsense) how crazy and dangerous religious people's beliefs can really be. I mean, there ARE thousands of people in the supposedly civilized and modern country of the US who honestly are earnest about the world coming to an end and they want to see Jesus mounted on top of a white horse hovering above a nuclear bomb site! This is not just superstition. It's much MUCH MUCH more morbid! These are the same people who are voting for governments who are militarizing the world and squandering our financial resources to finance war instead of PEACE, education, health care and other essentials. How can a country build a great civilization and a great society with this medieval mindset?
It takes people like Maher to make others aware of how crazy this apocalyptic ideology really is. I do think he said many things that needed to be said.
.... and religion to this world is like rape.
I personally believe that whoever wrote this stupid article is a fool. Excuse me sir, but are not your opinions on religion also lopsided as well? People like you believe religion is the best thing to happen to mankind which couldn't be further from the truth. Religion has created and justified much murder, genocide, war, rape, hatred and injustice- all the while operating under the peaceful image.
Religion rarely brings out the best in people, and even if it does- it still comes at a controversial price. For example, many see the pope as a kind man, which is truly is- however he supports a pro-life stance, therefore slamming the doors on raped women who wind up pregnant and young girls who are at tremendous health risks to continue the pregnancy. He also freely attacks gay rights without any ounce of compassion. I would say the "good" religious people would be the liberals, all the others are either neutral or pure evil.
Furthermore, I strongly dislike how you compare Religulous to religion- as rape is to sex. HOW DARE YOU! Religion, which happily lies to its followers and kills anyone that opposes them are the rapists. It is never different, Religion does the most evil and violent things and then calls the dying victims the evil ones.
Religion brutally rapes the minds on human beings, it removes us of our ability to be rational and peaceful and replaces it with a dogmas and impossible ideologies. Religion is the rape of mankind's understanding.
Love Jesus and stop sinning
or
you will go to hell!
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