Religulous

Religulous is funny. But of course, that's its main intent: to entertain. In the style of Borat, Bill Maher films himself in a series of interludes where he makes simple people of faith look foolish by asking all the right questions about serious religious issues that are at the core of faith. Questions such as why are there so many different world religions, creationism versus evolution, is the earth only 6,000 years old, what's the deal with transubstantiation, what's the deal with the trinity, and so on. All valid questions that everyone has probably answered for themselves after a late night dorm room discussion while on the journey of forming their world view.

The only problem is I don't think Bill Maher was looking for the answers or even looking for a level playing field on which to debate the questions. The goal here is to strictly to entertain rather than educate. And that's where this movie falls short. Bill Maher's political debates on his show "Real Time" are, for the most part, well represented by conservatives and liberals alike so as to have a fair and balanced debate of the political issues of the day. In contrast, Religulous is more like the Christians being fed to the lions than a fair and balanced discussion on faith.

"Are you not Entertained?"
I have to say I was. Dispite my beliefs differing from Bill Maher, I found the movie very funny. But I have a sick sense of humor.

The movie fails to resonate any truth since the discussion was pretty one sided. In other words, this was a religious version of Jay Leno's Jay walking where you ask simple questions to stupid people to get a laugh at their expense.

If you are really interested in listening to educated people discuss this type of material than I suggest the PBS special entitled
The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis

If you're interested in this movie, you should also check out ...
Borat
The Question of God: Sigmund Freud & C.S. Lewis