Watching Religulous If you belonged to a political party or a social club that was tied to as much bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance as religion is, youd resign in protest. Bill Maher Im watching Bill Mahers Religulous with the SSA tonight at Butler. The movie always makes me squirm as I see the ridiculous lengths to which people will go in the name of what they (I believe) inaccurately call faith. (If faith is blindly believing what some book or some guy in a fancy outfit tells you to believe, then I hope I dont have any.) To me the biggest challenge of the movie is the question I just quoted. My response, and maybe its a lame response, is that I do belong to a community that is deeply tied to bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance. Its called the human species. And if anybody really believes that bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, violence, and sheer ignorance would start to disappear if we could just get rid of religion, Id say thats about as ridiculous as believing that some of us are going to get raptured. (Sorry if I offended anyone who was counting on the rapture.) If all the recognizable forms of religion disappeared tomorrow (which aint gonna happen), our species would simply turn to other powerful ideologies and motivating symbols to justify their bent towards excluding others in the name of community. I think Mahers desire for a species utterly purified of any religious impulse is itself a symptom of the desire to blame common human problems on a group you believe you can eradicate. (No, I wasnt thinking about Ben Aflecks recent outburst when I wrote this. Thats a whole new subject.) I find that religion is about as useful and about as dangerous and about as indispensable as fire is. Look at all the devastation fire produces, but where would our species be without it? Anything that moves people at a fundamental level is dangerous, and demagogues are always ready to harness it to serve their own power grabs. But where would we be without a fervent desire to see our most inspiring, humane ideals becoming actual, without the fervor to foster ever more inclusive community? How could anyone credibly say that this fervor has nothing to do with religion? Instead its one way we use to identify religion when we encounter a new culture. But even though Bill Maher and I are never going to agree about religion, where I do agree with him and other outspoken secular people is that we religious types should not be immune to satire and ridicule. So much harm is done in the name of religion that its no wonder when humane people would be tempted to get rid of the religious impulse altogether. In the name of a more humane world of that all of us claim to desire, we simply have no right to claim exemption from ridicule, especially when too many of us go out of our way to invite it. If youre religious like me, you should watch this movie and be ready to squirm.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:17:21 +0000
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