Maher religion holy in religulous bill maher

TORONTO — “Just call us the Woodward and Bernstein of religion.”
That’s how Bill Maher sums his quest with “Borat” director Larry
Charles in “Religulous,” a pithy, smart, and usually profane poke at
religion.

From the Holy Land to the Holy Land Experience theme park in Florida,
Maher travels the globe searching out believers and engages them on
their turf about what they believe and why.

That confrontation between the faithful and Maher’s logic makes this
documentary a little like Prince Judah going after the Roman heathen
Messala in “Ben-Hur” — without the showy chariot race.

“All I can say is religion won’t go the way of the button shoe,” Maher
joked with reporters at the Toronto International Film Festival.

“Oh I still found myself bargaining with this guy in my head at times
when I was trouble,” he laughs. “But no, I’m not for this disease that
religion has turned out to be.”

Confronting the faithful as Bill does is funny stuff. With his logic
in hand, Maher goes forth and finds a Jesus impersonater who explains
the Holy Trinity to Maher by comparing it to the three states of
water.

He unearths tourists in the gift shop at The Holy Land Experience who
nosh back and forth with him about the place of the Jews in heaven.
Add to that the everyday American Christians Maher takes on who
“believe in believing” because “what if you died without faith and
found out you were wrong?”

It all sounds like flimsy crap to Maher, especially when he’s talking
to self-styled religious leaders, Catholic higher-ups dressed in un-
Godly expensive suits and bible-thumping fundamentalists like Arkansas
Senator Mark Pryor.

Maher’s approach is fair. He listens to what everyone has to say and
thoughtfully considers every word. Then Maher goes for the jugular.

“How can you believe in a talking snake?” he asks. How can a man live
in the belly of a whale or come back from the dead? And what about
those Mormons? How can they believe that God is some real super-dude
happily residing on another planet?”

From the stormy religious opinions he finds in Jerusalem to the
radical Muslim problem in Amsterdam, Maher’s quest for “truth”
presents a force behind faith that he and Charles would unquestionably
call frightening.

“My country is dumber than your is,” Maher quipped before the Canadian
press. “Only in America will you find politicians in a presidential
campaign trying to out-love Jesus.”

Some may vehemently disagree with such commentary from a man sporting
a ZZ Top beard and a pair of lavender Crocs dangling from his feet.
But so what? Taking a little heat is worth it to these two anti-heaven
crusaders.

“Religulous” won’t appeal to people who loved “The Passion of the
Christ,” the 2004 movie that made devout Catholic director Mel Gibson
richer than God. As Maher says, “We’re giving those who value science
and reason above myth another alternative at the movies.”

Whether “Religulous” changes peoples’ minds as America gears up for a
presidential election has yet to be seen.

“I don’t know how much this film will sway voters. But I’ll tell you.
When Sarah Palin got onto the Republican ticket with John McCain I was
swayed to write a big check to Obama,” Maher jokes.

“I watched a lot of documentaries before I got Larry to sign on. It
was all so depressing to watch,” Maher laughs.

Religulous movie’s maher he’s comment

Fearless as a fatwa and subtle as a Second Coming, “Religulous” is a
revelation. For his documentary on the dangers of world religion,
comic cultural gadfly Bill Maher traveled from the Holy Land to The
Holy Land Experience, questioning true believers of many faiths,
mocking all.

“Religious,” produced on the run with Larry Charles of “Borat” fame
behind the camera, ridicules Mormonism and Scientology, Islam and
Christianity, saving Maher’s special wrath for fundamentalism in its
many forms.

“Anti-rationalists,” Maher calls them. He lumps together George W.
Bush, Tom Cruise, con-artist TV preachers, a Senate Democrat and
pretty much anybody who bows to Mecca or weeps at crucifixion re-
enactments. He outs them, parses their beliefs and frets over the
amount of power these folks exercise in our world. The “Apocalypse
Now, or at least soon” crowd have their fingers on the Armageddon
button, Maher says.

Maher visits Megiddo, Israel, which “end times” enthusiasts embrace as
the Revelations-revealed location of Armageddon, the final battle
between believers and non-believers. He preaches Scientology in
London’s street-preacher haven of Hyde Park, smokes a joint with an
Amsterdam doper from a church of cannabis, is tossed out of the
Vatican and Salt Lake City, berated in a Jerusalem mosque and is
hugged by Christian truckers in the Trucker’s Chapel in Raleigh, N.C.

He seems genuinely charmed by the actor playing Jesus at Orlando’s
Holy Land Experience theme park. But Maher challenges John Westcott,
pastor of the Exchanges (“converted” gays) ministry in Winter Park,
Fla.; a Christian Human Genome Project scientist; the founder of the
Creation Museum in rural Kentucky; a Muslim Brit rapper who loves his
free speech, but hates yours if you criticize the Prophet. Maher is
flip and funny, but also profane and prone to interruption. He can be
rude. But he leaves more than one adversary speechless at his command
of The Bible, The Koran, the many shared creation and “virgin birth”
myths that Christianity, Judaism and Islam evolved from.

He’s not quite an equal-opportunity offender. Maher travels to the
Wailing Wall but goes awfully easy on the Chosen People (he’s half-
Catholic, half-Jewish). He leaves out Hinduism and Buddhism and limits
himself to religions with apocalyptic leanings.

“Grow up or die,” Maher tells the human race. But with the film’s
mocking tone, inclusion of snippets of gay porn and profanity, there’s
no way in Hades he’s going to persuade any fundamentalist to repent.
Rather, he’s reaching out to that sizable segment of humanity that has
moved beyond religion. “Speak up,” he says, or the folks who claim to
hear voices and build their lives around narrow interpretations of
bizarre texts will be the doom of us all.

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