Flying from Teguchigalpa to Miami, I had a little time when
I couldn’t be on the laptop, so I watched comedian Bill Maher’s movie,
Religulous.
In this movie, Mr. Maher goes to
great lengths to make all religions, look ridiculous, hence the title.
Sadly, it wasn’t even a very good
attempt.
Maher starts by interviewing a
bunch of truck drivers who are obviously Christian. Way to go Bill, what a great place to
start. Maher then goes on to make a series
of claims about Christianity that are totally baseless. He attacks the historicity of Jesus, but of
course fails to interview ANYONE with any real knowledge of the Biblical archaeology,
of the hundreds of ancient non-Biblical manuscripts, of even the illogic of
people being willing to die for a myth. Bill intentionally finds the bizarre,
the cash-hungry, the crazies and portrays these strange folk as being
illustrative of religion. Whereas there
is NO doubt that lots of crazy, and cunning, folk, cash in on religion, they
are hardly representative.
Although Bill goes to great lengths
to imply that religion will lead to the downfall of mankind, his omission of
the positive contributions of Christianity is striking. He clearly avoids any acknowledgement that
Christian hospitals, schools, and orphanages have done tremendous good, not
just in the wealthy west, but in the poorest parts of the world, world-wide.
But, then again, why would anyone
want to take serious philosophical advice from a man whose only qualification
involves being a comedian.
Oh, wait! Maybe that was the real gag.
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