You know, I enjoy Bill Maher’s work very much. More often than not, despite adamant opinions, he has the ability to come down in an even-handed manner on more than a few issues, hot button and otherwise. But one thing that has always driven me mad has been his absolute ignorance and over-dependence on hyperbole when addressing issues of religion.
I respect feelings of atheism. I’ve been there. I’m no religious fruitcake that gets pissy when someone denounces religion, either. Indeed, agnosticism has never been unattractive to me. But I have my spirituality and I respect and admire what is actually inherent and shared in religions across the world (something I think plenty would benefit from simply noticing, rather than quarreling over differences).
Maher has never been capable of this. Ever. And when he really digs into religion, he generally does it in the safety of a left-leaning panel on “Real Time” who wouldn’t exactly see fit to disagree with him (though there have been precious few exceptions).
With that in mind, does anyone expect Maher and Larry Charles’s “Religulous” to be anything more than a surface level dissection of beliefs with clever editing to make people look like morons? Kind of like, oh, portions of the Larry Charles-directed “Borat?” My anticipation for this film has frankly been victimized by a sense of dread for some time because of all of this.
Here’s the trailer:
httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=kSa2j6UoU78