Honolulu Weekly

Religulous / Early in comedian Bill Maher’s documentary Religulous (rhymes with ridiculous), one participant in a trucker chapel gets up angrily, saying, “I don’t know what kind of documentary you’re making, but you start to dispute my God, and you’ve got a problem.”

“I’m only asking questions,” he tells the rest of the group. It’s an act of survival because Maher is trapped in a narrow hallway with no way out except past a group of now-insulted belivers. The statement, however, rings false. Maher says he’s out to find the truth, but he’s not really interested in the answers of his participants.

Maher, the host of Real Time on HBO and former host of Politically Incorrect (until its cancellation shortly after he made controversial statements concerning the Sept. 11 attacks), is a smart and sharp-tongued social critic. His stand-up specials are more social commentary than comedy. He’s never been one to mince words and he’s never hidden his contempt for people with whom he disagrees, particularly if they say or do something idiotic. Bottom line: Maher is smug, condescending, pushy, and at times, completely unfair. But he’s also very funny. And the same points can be made about Religulous.

Director Larry Charles takes the same approach used in Borat, his previous feature: Ambush people with a camera and try to expose their preexisting biases, ignorance and prejudices with his host’s prodding. And there are plenty of people willing to play along, though many seem to have been genuinely misled about the nature of the documentary, and say as much. Along with the aforementioned truckers, there is a visit to a creationism exhibit featuring dinosaurs equipped with saddles coexisting with animatronic children in a tranquil setting. There’s a stop at Holy Land Experience, an amusement park in Florida that shows recreations of the crucifixion six times a week, and a DVD-shucking televangelist who justifies his $2,000 suit and lizard-skin shoes with, “Jesus wore fine linens.” Maher also debates U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor (D), who states, “You don’t need to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.” They even sneak into the Vatican, though they’re promptly thrown out.

Maher is half Roman Catholic, half Jewish (”I brought my lawyer with me to confessional,” he says). His family stopped attending services when he was 14 because of disagreement with the Catholic Church over birth control. For this reason, most likely, he concentrates most of his ire on Western religions, though Islam also takes a lot of heat for its intolerance. Mostly, we’re reminded that these man-on-the-street people may not be the cause of hate, strife, intolerance and war, but are part of a cycle of violence with similarities in approach, conversion and even backstories.

All the while, Maher wants people to justify belief in something they can’t prove and in stories, such as Jonah and the Whale, that sound as fanciful as Jack and the Beanstalk. But he’s stacked the deck with interview choices, and winning these debates is like beating a dead man at chess. When Maher leaves the trucker chapel, he thanks them for being Christ-like instead of Christian. It’s doubtful anyone else gave him that same compliment.

It’s obvious that anyone possessed of a higher understanding of scripture (and indeed, the few people that are get only scant minutes of screen time) would easily best Maher in a theological debate. Worse, quick edits and interspersed interviews require the audience to have faith in the filmmakers’ assertions that the participants’ answers were as absurd as they appear. Cutaways to scenes of Charlton Heston in biblical gear, cheap Mormon cartoons and even Al Pacino in Scarface serve to undercut or belittle what’s being said, and with many of the interviewees, it’s really unnecessary–they’re silly, stupid or scary enough all on their own.

After nearly an hour and a half, you begin to wonder: Sure it’s funny, but what’s the point? When one of the truckers asks Maher what he’ll do if he’s wrong, he’s quick to respond with, “What if you’re wrong?” There is no way for either side to win that argument.

The point, Maher states at the end, is that people shouldn’t make a virtue out of not thinking. Those who dismiss Religulous as atheist propaganda are incorrect. “Doubt,” Maher says, “is humble.” But he also thinks tolerance of intolerance is dangerous in itself and that the world’s doubters who allow it are enablers to war, genocide and the eventual end times so many of religious followers seem to look forward to. “Religion must die so that we may live,” he says. “It’s time to grow up, or die.” It’s hard to take a statement like that seriously after 100 minutes of poking fun at the slow kid.