religilous [2008]

Just been to see Bill Maher's new movie "Religilous" at the DCA on a bit of a whim, and it was well worth it. For most of my life I've wavered between Atheism and Agnosticism (or Cosmic Bet-Hedging), a few visits to church in my first year of University only serving to encourage these beliefs. With this in mind, the film was already preaching to the converted. However, there was still plenty that was new to me as I've never been particularly active in my disbelief - I don't scour religious texts for discrepancies, I just can't bring myself to actually believe any of it. On the off chance that I do find myself in front of St Peter, I've always thought I'll just take my chances.

The movie itself takes the major religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Mormon and Scientology for the most part) and pokes at their beliefs with simple questioning and humour. While it's unlikely yo change the mind of anyone who fully believes, it's still interesting to see him challenging the various groups - the bulk of the time is probably dedicated to Christianity. Interestingly, he gets the most sense out of two Catholic interviewees - a Vatican priest and the former chief astronomer of the Vatican. The latter makes the point regarding Creationism that there cannot be any science in the scriptures if they were written between 2,000BC and 200AD, and what we regard as Modern Science has only really been developing over the last 2-300 years - there's a pretty big gap in the timeline right there.

Maher ends with a call to all of the non-believers (13% of the US population, according to a survey) to speak out against all religion. With many Christians believing that we're in end times, and portions of Islam following an equally destructive path, it is indeed a scary thought that we could be wiped out all because of some daft superstitions.

It might be anti-religion-for-beginners for quite a few, but I thought "Religilous" was both entertaining and thought provoking.