Religulous
Nov. 21st, 2009 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thermalsatsumaReligion is inherently ridiculous.
Believing in something with no evidence and making a virtue of credulousness. Dressing up in silly costumes and swanning about in gilded palaces or hi-tech glass cathedrals whilst espousing the moral benefits of poverty. Insisting that the world is only 6000 years old in the face of all the evidence. Spotting holy images in a piece of toast or bird shit on a wing mirror. Strapping on explosives and blowing up a restaurant full of innocent people.
OK, maybe the last one isn't quite so funny, but it's the logical and inevitable conclusion of following the tenets of a religion that values a hypothetical afterlife over the value of life in this existence.
That is Bill Maher's argument in this film and it is one that is difficult to argue with. Maher was born to a Jewish mother and went to a Catholic church with his father until the age of thirteen, and wrestled with the usual questions about life, the universe and everything in his twenties. Now in his forties he sets out from a position of doubt to look at the claims of the three major world religions as well as a couple of minor ones including Mormonism and Scientology, not forgetting a church founded by pot smokers in Amsterdam.
Rather worryingly he finds that very few of the people he talks to know what is the holy books they claim to believe in, and points out the contradictions via handy on-screen subtitles. Even more worryingly he finds a common thread of destructive violence in complete contrast to the protestations of being religions of peace.
His conclusion is a stark one. Unless we abandon these foolish and childish beliefs, then there is a very real possibility of the human race destroying itself in an argument over who has the best imaginary friend.
Oh, and if anyone still thinks that religions are peaceful forces for good, please read this article and tell me if you still think the same.
Believing in something with no evidence and making a virtue of credulousness. Dressing up in silly costumes and swanning about in gilded palaces or hi-tech glass cathedrals whilst espousing the moral benefits of poverty. Insisting that the world is only 6000 years old in the face of all the evidence. Spotting holy images in a piece of toast or bird shit on a wing mirror. Strapping on explosives and blowing up a restaurant full of innocent people.
OK, maybe the last one isn't quite so funny, but it's the logical and inevitable conclusion of following the tenets of a religion that values a hypothetical afterlife over the value of life in this existence.
That is Bill Maher's argument in this film and it is one that is difficult to argue with. Maher was born to a Jewish mother and went to a Catholic church with his father until the age of thirteen, and wrestled with the usual questions about life, the universe and everything in his twenties. Now in his forties he sets out from a position of doubt to look at the claims of the three major world religions as well as a couple of minor ones including Mormonism and Scientology, not forgetting a church founded by pot smokers in Amsterdam.
Rather worryingly he finds that very few of the people he talks to know what is the holy books they claim to believe in, and points out the contradictions via handy on-screen subtitles. Even more worryingly he finds a common thread of destructive violence in complete contrast to the protestations of being religions of peace.
His conclusion is a stark one. Unless we abandon these foolish and childish beliefs, then there is a very real possibility of the human race destroying itself in an argument over who has the best imaginary friend.
Oh, and if anyone still thinks that religions are peaceful forces for good, please read this article and tell me if you still think the same.
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