The Review

HBO staple Bill Maher makes his big screen debut as writer and lead actor with Religulous, a documentary film that takes Maher across the globe in an attempt to answer a simple question: why, given the prevalence of scientific evidence to the contrary, do people continue to believe in faith-based notions? Or put more simply, why, in an age where reason and rationality are prized, does God still exist?
To be sure, Maher's approach is that of the comic turned prophet. In a series of interviews that range from a group of over-weight (and sadly, undereducated and unwashed) truckers at 'the Truckers Chapel' in Midwest America to the steps of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome – the seat of Roman Catholic power – Maher pokes fun at what he considers to be the glaring inconsistencies inherent to religious thought. His polemics certainly color each of these interviews and make both his jokes and the message he wishes to convey through them possible. For instance, one of the most striking interviews is with a gay-turned-straight pastor who firmly believes that people can 'pray away the gay.' We are asked of course, if we hadn’t figured it out already, to consider this take on homosexuality as an example of the absurd. As a result, we can not only chuckle at the pastor who appears to be playing the role of the fool, but we can catch a glimpse of one of Maher's prime critiques of religious thinking: that holding onto archaic notions about the world because they are sanctioned by a religious code can have serious consequences both for individuals and the global community.

This is all well and good, and up until the last five minutes of the film, even the most ardent of the faithful could appreciate Religulous as the brain-child of an unbeliever who does raise some challenging questions about when religion, or perhaps, the religious, go too far. But it is in the final scenes that Maher, like many a social scientist, errs in trying to locate a causal relationship between various themes and variables to provide his work with some over-arching message. For Maher, this message is simply that religion as a factor in human history is an all-together negative force. What is most troubling about his observations here is the strong implication that there is little distance to cover between fervent religious belief and acts of extreme violence – or as we would call it, terror. For anyone who has studied the causes, variables and determinants of terror, asserting a clear link between religion and terror without controlling for economic, social, political or cultural variables is simply irresponsible. At its face, and perhaps for most audiences, Maher's claim would be thought-provoking and convincing. For most believers, this sort of thinking is both insulting and offensive. Thus, at the end of the day, what we have is a trend towards greater ideological entrenchment as well as distance between believer and agnostic/atheist.

A funny movie to be sure, but one that even the most marginally informed student of public policy will find deeply troubling.