Firstly, on Thursday I called Bill Maher a prick in class for making this movie. I was wrong about that. He made the movie to raise a consciousness about the (possible) pitfalls of religion. The trailer (click here) was very misleading. He makes religion out to be a joke in the trailer, which I took personal offense to but the movie wasn't him mocking it or the people who follow it. It was his plea for the people who blindly follow religion and with radical fashion that it is highly damaging to the Earth.
The movie was certainly very interesting. He interviewed people who are very active within their faith and asked them questions that are contradictory to what his/her respective religion claims to teach and believe in. He gives them fair shot to defend themselves, but surprisingly he actually really knew his stuff. He started with Christians, particularly Catholics. His first one was called the "Truckers Chapel" where truckers can stop and pray to God and attend a service. Many of the people there didn't have much of a good rebuttal to what Maher was saying to them, they were rednecks for lack of a better word.
The two best interviews he had in the entire movie were to Catholic priests. He didn't rip them for the whole sexual abuse with children controversy, but instead spoke to them logically and fairly. The first was a Catholic priest who was also a Doctor in Astronomy. The man openly admits that the Bible should not be consulted as a scientific reference on whether God exists. The priest explains that there is an obvious problem that the Bible was written from 2,000 B.C. to about 50 A.D. and that "modern science" began around 1500 A.D. That huge gap in time doesn't allow science to be used objectively in the times that Bible was written in.
The second interview I previously mentioned was with a Sr. Priest in the Vatican (which Maher was quickly kicked out of). The priest displays his distaste of the overall grandness of the Vatican, its huge pillars, marble floors, ancient huge statues and everything in it that without a doubt costs a lot of money. This obviously differs from the Bible's teaching of humbleness and sharing your possessions with people who really need them. Also, he says the days of "burning in a firey death in Hell for eternity" as over. The priest seemed to have an extremely modern view on today's religion.
He also targeted Muslim and Jewish faiths, but those weren't so focused. There were a few interviews with Jewish and Muslim worshippers, but none were nearly as interesting, possibly because I myself am a Christian. So perhaps I lost a little interest in those interviews. There was one interview, however, in which he interviewed a Jew who is in favor of making Israel "disappear" - not destroying it, making it "disappear". When Maher brought up the fact that he met with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who openly discussed eradicating Israel and its people and he denied. It then cut to a video of that exact man hugging the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadat that speech that he stating these claims that Israel must be destroyed.
He took a few stabs at Mormonism, with one interview of ex-Mormons, and one quick jab at Scientology but those two were basically spared. Overall, the movie surprised me. It wasn't the mocking of religion that I expected and at a few moments I was even laughing at some of the commentary Maher had laid out there. It was typical Bill Maher - informed, witty, funny, and never intimidated.
The movie was certainly very interesting. He interviewed people who are very active within their faith and asked them questions that are contradictory to what his/her respective religion claims to teach and believe in. He gives them fair shot to defend themselves, but surprisingly he actually really knew his stuff. He started with Christians, particularly Catholics. His first one was called the "Truckers Chapel" where truckers can stop and pray to God and attend a service. Many of the people there didn't have much of a good rebuttal to what Maher was saying to them, they were rednecks for lack of a better word.
The two best interviews he had in the entire movie were to Catholic priests. He didn't rip them for the whole sexual abuse with children controversy, but instead spoke to them logically and fairly. The first was a Catholic priest who was also a Doctor in Astronomy. The man openly admits that the Bible should not be consulted as a scientific reference on whether God exists. The priest explains that there is an obvious problem that the Bible was written from 2,000 B.C. to about 50 A.D. and that "modern science" began around 1500 A.D. That huge gap in time doesn't allow science to be used objectively in the times that Bible was written in.
The second interview I previously mentioned was with a Sr. Priest in the Vatican (which Maher was quickly kicked out of). The priest displays his distaste of the overall grandness of the Vatican, its huge pillars, marble floors, ancient huge statues and everything in it that without a doubt costs a lot of money. This obviously differs from the Bible's teaching of humbleness and sharing your possessions with people who really need them. Also, he says the days of "burning in a firey death in Hell for eternity" as over. The priest seemed to have an extremely modern view on today's religion.
He also targeted Muslim and Jewish faiths, but those weren't so focused. There were a few interviews with Jewish and Muslim worshippers, but none were nearly as interesting, possibly because I myself am a Christian. So perhaps I lost a little interest in those interviews. There was one interview, however, in which he interviewed a Jew who is in favor of making Israel "disappear" - not destroying it, making it "disappear". When Maher brought up the fact that he met with the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who openly discussed eradicating Israel and its people and he denied. It then cut to a video of that exact man hugging the President Mahmoud Ahmadinejadat that speech that he stating these claims that Israel must be destroyed.
He took a few stabs at Mormonism, with one interview of ex-Mormons, and one quick jab at Scientology but those two were basically spared. Overall, the movie surprised me. It wasn't the mocking of religion that I expected and at a few moments I was even laughing at some of the commentary Maher had laid out there. It was typical Bill Maher - informed, witty, funny, and never intimidated.
