Religulous Review

My wife Rachel and I decided to sit down and watch Bill Maher in his recent movie "Religulous". As a former Catholic, stand up comedian and host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher", he has done a great job in making anyone who believes in God look like an idiot. Throughout the film he consistently criticizes and makes fun of religion. Although he claims that "he doesn't know" if God exists or not, he makes a statement that has been popularized by Richard Dawkins in his book "The God Delusion", stating that in order for the human race to prosper we need to rid it of religion and that people who believe in God have a neurological disorder.

However, after watching this film I am very confident in saying that it does not in any way pose a threat to any one's faith, whether Christian, Catholic, Muslim, etc. In fact, it is obvious that Bill is uneducated when it comes to the doctrine of these religions, and offers no intellectual arguments against any of them. Rather, he simply makes fun of them.

While watching the movie I took notes, and would like to share my "top 10" statements and questions Bill uses in the film to try and belittle Christianity.

#1.) Bill makes fun of "drinking the blood of a 2000 year old Man/God". First, God doesn't claim to be 2000 years old, He is eternal. Second, this is a practice of the Catholic Communion, not Christianity in general. Third, this in no way has anything to do with God being real or not. As Christians we partake in communion as a way of reflecting on what Christ did for us. He gave His body and shed His blood for the remission of sins. We eat bread and drink wine (or grape juice) as a symbolic action.

#2.) Bill claims that the Virgin Birth is a man made story and dismisses it because it is only in two of the Gospels. Here you see the ignorance of Bill's theology. Obviously he has never studied the New Testament documents, their context, and the historicity of Jesus of Nazareth. The fact that Jesus' birth is recorded in Matthew and Luke's Gospel and not in Mark's and John's in no way dismisses it's truth. If one man documents his experience in Vietnam beginning with how the war started, and another man in the same platoon documents his experience starting with when he arrived there 3 years after the war started, does this show that we cannot trust how the war started? Or that it's false? Not at all. This is just pure speculation by Bill, nothing more.

#3.) Bill claims that none of the New Testament writers were eye witnesses to the life of Jesus. This particular statement must be embarrassing. Again, with all do respect to Bill Maher, this just shows his ignorance of the New Testament documents. Matthew, John, Peter, James, and Jude were all eye witnesses to Jesus.

#4.) Bill claims Jesus might not be an actual historical person. Scholars across the board all agree that there was a Jesus of Nazareth. The evidence of this is very hard to deny. For example, the historian Will Durant (non-Christian), the Roman historian Tacitus, the Jewish historian Josephus, Plinius Secundus (the Governor of Bithnyia in Asia Minor), and Lucian all wrote about Jesus of Nazareth outside of the Bible.

#5.) Bill uses the story of "Lot offering his daughters sexually to protect angels" against God and the Bible. Is this the best he could do? Why not use David's adultery and murder, or Peter's denial of Christ. We all know the Bible is full of dysfunctional people who make stupid decisions. This is consistent with the nature of man, it shows nothing about the nature of God, except that He loves us even though we do stupid things and mess up all the time.

#6.) Bill argues with a Pastor about homosexuals being born gay. He bounces around like a ping pong ball searching for proof from this Pastor but offers none himself!

#7.) Bill compares God to Santa Claus. This one was so absurd to me. God and Santa are on totally different levels.

#8.) Bill makes a statement to a Politician in Arkansas that he is "concerned that people running our Country believe in talking snakes". LOL! I thought this one was funny. We don't believe in a talking snake, we believe in an Almighty God.

#9.) Bill asks a question at the "Holy Land Experience" in Florida saying "What is God waiting for?" in reference to terminating evil and restoring all things. Bill's very question is not valid. God cannot "wait", God is eternal. He exists outside of time. Besides that, what if in two days from now more people become saved?

#10.) Bill compares the Egyptian god Horus to Jesus regarding a virgin birth, death by crucifixion, resurrection three days later, raising a man from the dead, etc. Giving the impression that the early Christians adopted these myths and applied them to Jesus Christ. For the sake of time as well as your eyes, I will go into great detail about this in a separate post. But in short, Horus was none of the above. You can do the research yourself.

In summary, Bill Maher travels the world, picking non-intellectual, televangelist, uneducated, religious people to interview and totally bashes them in an attempt to make religion look stupid. I personally would like to see him do a sequel to the film interviewing people such as Dr. William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland, Ben Witherington, Chuck Missler, Lee Strobel and other qualified Scholarly believers in God. I think then the tables would be turned, and Bill would be the one tucking his tail, walking away, and feeling like an ignorant fool who's belief's are a product of neurological condition.

Chad Dulaney