It’s not immediately obvious that the main message of the movie Religulous – that religion is ridiculous and we have no room for it anymore in the world – would appeal to any person (like myself) who describes himself as religious. Religious people have seen atheists set up paper tigers and rip them apart before. It’s not hard to defeat an opponent in a debate, if you first effectively caricature them. And Maher’s point is most emphatically not to paint detailed, fair-minded portraits of the religious men and women who appear in his movie. He’s out to caricature them, refute them, or simply let them caricature themselves (admittedly, many do that for him). We’ve seen this before, and it’s not immediately obvious that it’s all that useful or deep.
And yet I found myself very moved towards the close of the movie as Bill Maher appeals to “those who describe themselves as moderately religious” to think long and hard about the destructive potential religion currently has. The apocalypse we once feared from the Cold War now appears to be possible only through religion. Countries like Russia and China, which are our putative strategic rivals, appear to be out for victory – a worldly goal, and one we can work with. The only remaining people who would be willing to enter into nuclear war are religious – because they figure mutually assured destruction will assure themselves of heaven and their enemies of hell. And that’s the only type of victory they want anyway.
Maher’s appeal succeeded with me, and succeeded with most of the other intelligent religious people I know who have watched the movie. For truly religious people, I think there is nothing at all threatening about Maher. In fact, even though the movie has juvenile moments and is not always fair, you feel that Maher has touched something that serious religious people need to think about. (In fact, the movie is probably more appropriate for religious people than for atheists, who rarely need to be hardened in their views.) I have heard it said that it is terrible to be a bridge, because then you get walked on by both sides. But that is precisely the role for intelligent believers – they need to moderate between the intelligent atheists and the dumb believers. And in many instances, we have to recognize that the intelligent atheists are right.
It is true that Maher is a smartass (we knew this before). But he is, as the word implies, also smart. In fact he is very quick with both tongue and mind (which is very entertaining), and for the most part he runs circles around his interlocutors. At times the movie plays like a series of clips of the worst parts of the Socratic dialogues: the mismatch is ridiculous. Maher asks some huge, very difficult questions (“Why is faith good?”) and his opponents leap into the questions like idiots in order not to seem stupid (I guess they figured it was important to give some answer). These questions could tax the most brilliant minds, but most of Maher’s interlocutors are not that: they include shopowners, truckers, second-rate ministers, and random visitors at a Jesus theme park. Because their inconsidered and incoherent responses become tedious and even sad after awhile (again, the mismatch), he has to mix in interviews with intelligent people. They all come off fairly well (though many of them are not religious, and are there to give evidence against religion).
There were some exceptions to this rule, such as the muslims. They for the most part spoke well, but Maher’s interviews usually uncovered a most interesting cognitive dissonance. He says in the movie that he felt they were giving dishonest answers: the “Islam means peace” routine is now just the party line when dealing with non-muslims. The other main exception were the people who profited in some way or other by religion. In at least two of them Maher uncovered a gleam of some kind of self-satisfaction, as if they realized the whole thing was merely a business. Almost the same facial expression emerged with a U.S. senator from Arkansas. I’m not certain he really cared much about Creationism, but he was willing to play the whole thing as a political game. He made one major gaffe, when he said, “Look, you don’t need to pass an I.Q. test to be in the U.S. senate.” It was clear from his face that what he meant was: “Listen, if my constituents want me to be a Creationist, I’ll be one. I’m willing to check my brain at the door if that’s what it takes to keep my job.”
It’s not hard to find cynical religious profiteers like this, and they represent the dominant image of religious power in the eyes of many atheists. But Maher also uncovered a lot of religious certainty – a lot of what many people would call faith. But these religious people did not come off very well. What was most striking about all of them was their psychological need for this certainty – it seemed overwhelming. They rushed, like fools, into theological depths where angels would have feared to tread. On film they appeared to be incapable of a simple “I don’t know” – incapable of one simple acknowledgement of humility. Their religion was simply a way for them to be better than others, and as a result they were willing to get on camera and give Bill the answers. His ability to dance circles around them in speech brought only two responses I could identify: shock and confusion, or defensiveness and hostility. These are not generally identified as fruits of religious devotion.
This is probably because most of what these people are doing is not religion, or not good religion, or not spirituality (whatever words you want to use to make this distinction). I am reminded of a passage from the Verba Seniorum, the sayings of the Desert Fathers, in which one of the fathers goes to visit another, and brings with him two novices. They read a passage of Scripture together, and then asks the first novice to interpret it. He does. The father’s response is, “You haven’t got it yet.” He then turns to the second, and asks him to interpret. He does. The father’s response is, “You haven’t got it yet.” He then turns to the other father and asks him to interpret. The father’s response is, “I have no idea what this Scripture means.” “You’ve got it,” is the response.
To an atheist, of course, this all sounds dumb: what does the world get from glorifying this kind of ignorance? At its best it merely resembles the skepticism at the base of the scientific method. Why not merely teach that? That is because this humility and ignorance is not the whole thing – more comes later. The religious life is a “path” – I admit that is merely a metaphor, but I will explain it – that is to say, it consists of stages, and unfolds only by going from one stage to another. One of the early stages is the one the novices in the story were being taught: humility. Learn to say “I don’t know.” Wean yourself off of your certainty. Until you have done that, you are not ready for any further religious instruction. You will only abuse it. You will make of it a way to be better than others, a way to control others, a way to profit from others – a power trip, precisely what atheists see when they look at religion.
This is what Bill Maher uncovers – religion as a means of satisfying a tremendous psychological need to avoid uncertainty (or what truly religious people would have called mystery), or religion as a power trip. And no one who studies people would deny that this is fairly representative of the real state of religion. Maher uncovers the magnitude and seriousness of the problem. I recommend the movie for anyone who values religion. Maher’s appeal for mystery – “I believe in ‘I don’t know’”, he says – will strike religious people as a very important first step for any further enlightenment.
P.S. Many people have heard that Fr. Reginald Foster, a close friend of this blog, makes an appearance in the movie. He does, and the crowd that I saw the movie with found him the high point of the whole movie. It was interesting how Maher touched deep chords with him almost immediately, beginning by asking him if Jesus intended any of the whole operation at St. Peter’s. “Jesus would never have come to St. Peter’s that’s OBVIOUS,” was the basic response. Maher’s follow-up question touched the pain of Reginaldus’ entire life: “Does that make you upset?” It was clear that Reginaldus wanted to say no, you accept everything, that’s the way of the monk, but he didn’t lie, and so he stammered and “Buh-buh-buhed” until he said “YEAH!” Then after a few minutes of priceless dialogue about the the religion of the Italians, Reginaldus summed it all up by uttering the monk’s (almost) acceptance of it all, “You just have to let people live and die with their stupid ideas.”
3 Comments