It took me eighteen years to finally discover what a crock religion is. There it is, all of my explanation I feel I owe anyone who questions my belief system. While lampooning religion can be fun for only so long, “Religulous” is a film I think should be seen mainly because whether you like it or not spawns truths and puts the religious in the hot seat to discover what god and or religion is. What is god? How did he come to be? I’ve never a response without some sort of unsure rhetoric or descent in to the old clichés about his coming to be without ever providing a solid answer.
Here is where I discovered that without a definite answer, religion was complete bullshit and I never really had the bravery to leave the church pursue atheism until I was eighteen and found no religion to be the path in life. “Religulous” is a great study of the common superstition based around a deity that many, many of us believe without question. Maher travels down a very bumpy road about the bases of religious belief and confronts many known specialists who can never quite decide how to explain God. Directed in the vein of “Borat,” Maher and Larry Charles both strive for a slightly humorous comprehension and lambasting of many beliefs that venture out of Christianity and in to more prominent threatening religious affiliations like Islam and Scientology and helps to show us the shocking similarities between the origins of Jesus Christ and if he ever existed.
Though Maher approaches with a sly wit and comforting interplay, there are still those who look to him hatred and disgust even inspiring one man hit him and walk off from a small group if he even challenged the notion. Maher doesn’t exactly provide impossible questions. He instead asks “What if?” and allows the interviewee a chance to resolve and hold up their end in the debates and challenges (or the mind of hang themselves with their rope). Which the latter is often the case. For a while in to the film I was never sure what Maher and Chase’s thesis was for their look at various religions and then I finally realized that he just wanted an answer. What is God? No theist can explain it without resorting to aggression or flat out cheesy euphemisms. What is god? You don’t get the answers because there are none. Just like the topic of abortion or race, “Religulous” tackles an infinite argument for men and women to share for decades with no definitive answers. While Maher can ten to tread over the same material regarding disputes about the topic, it’s forgiven when at the end of the film he still has no idea who what when and where god is, if he even existed.