Saw this Saturday at the Traverse City film festival. It won't be out in theaters until October. (Side note: they padded us down and had these guys scanning the audience the entire time with night vision goggles looking for pirates)
In a nutshell, the movie is a documentary following Bill Maher around as he interviews a variety of religious figures from many different religions and essentially makes fun of their wacky beliefs. It may sound obnoxious, but it's done by the guy who directed Borat, and it comes off as more humorous than condescending like Dawkin's stuff.
There's not a whole lot of a new material here. Most of the stuff he points out has been done to death (Biblical discrepancies, the story of Jesus being plagiarized, the real tenets of Scientology, the Jewish industry that focuses on making products to by-pass the rules of the sabbath, Islam as a violent religion, etc.). Though there is some stuff in the film I never heard of before, like Mormons wearing a special type of underwear that protects them from Satan.
Ultimately though, the most interesting thing about the film is the conclusion Maher draws at its close. He doesn't try and go, "haha, look at these foolish religious people, aren't they funny?" More or less he argues that organized religion, if allowed to continue, will lead to the destruction of society. A self-fulfilling Armageddon. He concludes that, despite everything good religion has done for society, it ultimately has caused more harm than benefit. That religion prays on people's fear to manipulate them, often for very negative ends. And he challenges the ascertation that "faith is a gift"--without blind faith, no human has the ability to manipulate you through that faith.
So I turn it over to the pavilion, one more religious topic?
In a nutshell, the movie is a documentary following Bill Maher around as he interviews a variety of religious figures from many different religions and essentially makes fun of their wacky beliefs. It may sound obnoxious, but it's done by the guy who directed Borat, and it comes off as more humorous than condescending like Dawkin's stuff.
There's not a whole lot of a new material here. Most of the stuff he points out has been done to death (Biblical discrepancies, the story of Jesus being plagiarized, the real tenets of Scientology, the Jewish industry that focuses on making products to by-pass the rules of the sabbath, Islam as a violent religion, etc.). Though there is some stuff in the film I never heard of before, like Mormons wearing a special type of underwear that protects them from Satan.
Ultimately though, the most interesting thing about the film is the conclusion Maher draws at its close. He doesn't try and go, "haha, look at these foolish religious people, aren't they funny?" More or less he argues that organized religion, if allowed to continue, will lead to the destruction of society. A self-fulfilling Armageddon. He concludes that, despite everything good religion has done for society, it ultimately has caused more harm than benefit. That religion prays on people's fear to manipulate them, often for very negative ends. And he challenges the ascertation that "faith is a gift"--without blind faith, no human has the ability to manipulate you through that faith.
So I turn it over to the pavilion, one more religious topic?
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