How Does A Guy Who Doesn't "Know Anything", "Know" So Much?

This is a review of the movie/documentary "Religulous" by Bill Maher.


I thought “Religulous” would be more antagonistic toward religion than it was. Oh, don’t get me wrong, Bill Maher makes it very clear that he does not like religion, actually, that’s probably putting it gently. He believes religion is a significant aspect of what’s wrong with our world. If he doesn’t say it in those exact words, that’s the basic gist of his message.

And it’s not just that he doesn’t like religion, he feels that religion is a form of stupidity that no rational, thinking person could possibly accept. In fact, often, his argument against the religious beliefs that he encounters is simply to smirk and have the attitude of, “Oh, come on . . . !”

But even allowing for all that, the movie wasn’t quite as mean-spirited toward religion as I thought it might be.

I, also, thought “Religulous” would be funnier than it was. There were some moments and there were a few good lines. One of the lines that made me laugh was when Maher was describing his experience in catechism class, as a kid. He referred to it as “vast stretches of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.”

But, let’s face it, religion and religious people provide lots of material for comedy—and I say that as a devout Christian believer and pastor of a church. In fact, there are a number of “Christian” comedians who have mined church life and the basic Christian experience for great hilarity. Although, come to think of it, people probably find comedy at the expense of their religious experience to be much more palatable if it comes from another believer who is basically saying, “Aren’t WE pretty funny, sometimes?”

Well, I got a little sidetracked, there. My point was that “Religulous” had some amusing moments but for a movie about the pitfalls of religion, made by a well-known professional comedian, I thought it would be funnier. [Before I submitted this review, I read a few of the other reviews and noticed that many of them considered “Religulous” to be very funny, even, “hilarious”. So I guess we see, once again, that “comedy”, like “beauty”, is very much in the eye of the beholder.]

But, that brings me to my final point about the movie. In some ways, it probably wasn’t as funny as one might have expected because there’s a serious edge to it; there’s a “message” to this movie. Throughout the movie, Maher, describes himself as someone who is merely asking questions, a doubter, a skeptic, he refers to himself as someone who “doesn’t know” and he insists that none of us can really know with any degree of certainty about the big issues that religion raises. And, yet, the flaw in Maher’s logic is that he actually does claim to know some things. And his movie has an agenda that is driven by the fact that he is certain of some things, foremost among the things that Maher knows is the “truth” that ALL religions are wrong, false and ultimately very bad for our world.

If you think about it, that’s quite a vast, comprehensive and impressive thing to “know” for a guy who “doesn’t know” but is merely asking questions.

Dan Marler
Oak Lawn, IL