Film Review: Religulous

I just finished watching Bill Maher’s new film Religulous. Part religious-biography, part Moore-style documentary filming, this film had me really laughing aloud at a few points. I’m a sucker for his dry and sarcastic wit. What made me want to write about it was some exciting quotes by the U.S.A.’s founding fathers at ~ the 30 minute mark:

“Lighthouses are more useful than churches.” -Benjamin Franklin

“This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it!” – John Adams

“Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.” -Thomas Jefferson

One could see that there was a bit of Zeitgeist-style comparative religion (the premise being that the story of Horace, and other gods after it, the story of the virgin birth, dec 25th birthday, performing miracles, death and resurrection etc — this was then used as Jesus Christ’s fable too). It wasn’t done as well as Zeitgeist but perhaps it’ll reach a larger audience? Anyhow, I’d like to say that Maher had easy targets (and he did), but these people he interviewed were, for example, an owner of a Christian paraphernalia store, an Imam in Amsterdam, a U.S. senator (!), etc etc. These were people who should know their shit. And through selective editing and the power of reasoning, these people looked infantile in their beliefs/faiths. I agree with the premise of the film, that religion creates and sustains much of what is wrong with human relations in this world. It’s a social ill and the world would be better without it – and for that matter, the world would be better with more lighthouses.

Here is the film’s imdb.
The film may be bought using that link, or rented from Netflix, or easily downloaded using your favorite public or private torrent site.