This is Bill Maher

Keshaun 2022-03-22 09:02:10

i am a fan of Bill Maher (and his Real Time on HBO and Podcast) and his position on religions is well known. it is only natural for me to see this documentary.

he primarily interviews people believing in Christianity and Islam. as usual, he talks with his sharpness, which always causes pause, embarrassment and anger on the part of the interviewees. Their facial expressions are fully captured. Some of them wanted to hide their displeasure and retain composure but was not doing a good job. It is a mystery to me, why these people agreed to the interview in the first place, maybe they believe in their faiths so much and thought they could convince Bill instead -- or simply they wanted to appear open-minded and prone to free speech. i actually admire their courage (or ignorance).

Bill also interviewed some folks from other religions and cults. Buddhism was not mentioned -- probably because of his lack of understanding or because of Buddhism's lack of establishment in US or both....or rather, Buddhism is more of a philosophy than a deity-worshiping religion.

this documentary's message is also conveyed by juxtaposition of other movie clips to make the religion, as the title indicates, ridiculous.

Doubt is humble and brave. Faith is easy.

ps. The only religious guy that is not ridiculous is actually the senior Vatican priest Father Reginald Foster. He is funny but not ridiculous. He's got common sense A wiki search turns out he is American and specialized in Latin.

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Extended Reading

Religulous quotes

  • Bill Maher: [Extra] What about when innocent people get killed during a "defensive action"?

    Michael Bray: I'm for that. Yeah. It's collateral damage.

    Bill Maher: But it's acceptable?

    Michael Bray: We've got to consider what the real issue is here and what the cost is and the risk.

  • Bill Maher: [Extra] This is the Anne Frank house, when you see it you really understand how true that phrase "The banality of evil" really is. One of the common arguments in defence of religion is that Hitler wasn't religious and neither was Stalin or Mao and they were bad so religion is good. But like religion itself it's an argument that really depends a lot on not thinking too deeply. For one Hitler himself didn't eliminate anyone personally he had a lot of footsoldiers most of whom were good Christians and they pushed people into the ovens. Religion has done a bad job of stepping up and preventing violence-prone bullies from doing their thing. If anything it usually justifies acts of madness. And 20th Century Fascism and Communism while not strictly religions as we've come to think of religion, really were religions. They were state religions. Hitler was seen as infallable and Godlike. Hirohito was absolutely a God on Earth to the Japanese people. We shouldn't get too hung up on the word religion. The bottom line is whether people think and act rationally or not and whenever they organise their lives around something that could best be described as groundlessness bad things happen. Even if the central story seems harmless like there's a God who loves you so much that he had his only Son whacked so that you could keep on sinning. Still, doesn't matter, once reality has left the building, once it's up there in the ether then anything can be extrapolated or tacked on by Preachers and Priesthoods and delusionals and power-hungry pricks. It's not that big a step from "your God is the only God and he loves you very much" to "you really should get out there and start killing for him" Whenever people believe in something utterly groundless because they were told it by a charismatic preacher and Hitler was nothing if not that, all bets are off. Nazism was a religion, a religion based on the insane fiction that Jews were subhuman vermin who did not deserve to live, but people and people not from a primitive society believed it because A they liked the preacher, B the other sheep around them were buying into it even though it was crazy and C it was inextricably tied to their view of a glorious Valhalla-like future. A, B, C. Religion.