I just got back from seeing the movie Religulous, directed by Larry Charles (Curb and Seinfeld fans might know him) and starring Bill Maher. This movie was extremely thought provoking. I left feeling a paradoxical combination of discouragement and the need to act.
Without going into too much detail about my own religious beliefs (most of you don't care, and none of you have that kind of time) and how the world should turn according to those beliefs, I can say that this movie adequately highlights my reasons for breaking with organized religion. However, I'm not totally sure I agree with or appreciate the approach.
Bill Maher is the arrogant pessimist visiting high-ranking church, state and media evangelical officials (but wait, aren't those usually one in the same?). He also interviews individuals you might find in your book club, across the cubicle, serving your food, teaching your children, or... sitting in your pew. In each of these encounters, he seeks a soapbox. My parents raised me in a fashion, and I have learned they were right through my own blunders in life, to maintain a certain level of respect when you're on someone else's turf. Not only would you expect the same of them, but in doing so it is easier to participate in a dialogue with as unemotional answers as possible. He throws this caution to the wind as he blatantly tells people there is no proof of their religion, their book was written by ordinary men, and basically the fortress around which they've developed their beliefs and lived their life is actually made of imagination. Now whether or not I agree with this isn't the point. This stance never elicited a proper conversation, it only makes him look like the embodiment of pragmatism. And in the end, he implied that by going to church, temple, or whatever you are contributing to all the evil in the world. This struck me as the same as my belief that people that shop at Wal-Mart are encouraging a damaged economy. So I guess I'm a bit hypocritical in my anger towards him on this subject.
The movie was a serious one. The terrifying truths exposed by his impish questioning of these people were softened with comic reliefs of clips from old films, current videos, and audio clips mocking whatever it was they were discussing. I laughed a LOT in this movie. But I walked away feeling incredibly, incredibly discouraged by humanity.
However, all that aside... I completely agree the movie's overall point. These religions, which purport to be so different, so right and so condemning, are drawing the world in sketches of black and white, while we all know there is a spectrum of color in our lives. Such a division of "us and them" is naturally going to create animosity and the need to correct "them." It's all relative. My experiences are so vastly different from yours. The decisions I make shape my destiny in a different form than yours. But in the end, you and I will both die, and the end doesn't justify the means.
