Anti-Religion Movies: The Plusses

There have been a few movies in recent history that take pretty sharp jabs at organized religion, or even the idea of a God. Some have been more "fun-spirited," like The Da Vinci Code (which I personally thought could have been more fun than it was), while others are pretty straightforward in their message, like the recent Religulous, by Bill Maher.

The typical conservative religious response to films like Religulous, whose messages aren't interlaced with fiction, is to boycott and complain and organize protests. This doesn't exactly help our case, since religious types are typically accused of being close-minded and prejudiced, and boycotting a movie one hasn't seen falls into that category.

However, I look at Religulous and other films like it as a much needed wake-up call for the religious people of the world; not as proof that God doesn't exist, but as a reminder that no matter how weird someone else's religion may appear, yours looks just as weird. Online and offline, I've bumped into people who claim that the LDS church (which I'm sure isn't alone in this situation) CAN'T be true, because there isn't enough proof to support its claims. On many occassions, the individual belongs to the Catholic church, or some other religion with deep history and traditions.

I find that comparing one religion to another by way of facts and evidence is a fool's errand. I think sometimes people get so caught up in their own religions and traditions that they forget how absurd religion itself looks to the atheist. Think about it: We believe in an all-powerful being, embodied or not, who created and controls everything. He lives in "Heaven," an unspecified world that is generally regarded as cloudy. If we're good, we go there. If we're bad, we go to "Hell," a land of fire and brimstone. These are pretty typical Christian beliefs.

Where is Heaven? Where is Hell? Are they here on Earth, a planet we've pretty much explored inside and out? Why is God able to control everything?

The claims of religion are difficult to believe or even grasp in this world of advancing science and technology. As religious and convinced of God's existence as I am, I can't blame the atheist for being a bit skeptical. And yet somehow, the major conflict has almost always existed between different religions, not between religion and the absence thereof. We're so busy trying to convince each other through facts and evidence that one is better or more right than the other, we forget that we're trying to prove an factual argument about someone whose existence is still in question.

In my opinion, Religulous is an opportunity for religious people everywhere to understand that we are ALL under scrutiny; not just Mormons, Jehova's Witnesses, Scientologists, or Catholics, but everyone. To the atheist community, we are no more than kids, arguing over whose imaginary friend looks the coolest.

So many people rely on facts and history as a source of their faith. Bill Maher, Dan Brown, and others like them have called these things into question. This strips the religious community of the worldly evidences it so desperately clings to and REQUIRES that we turn to faith for our testimonies.

I'll probably never see it, but I'm glad Religulous got made. It's about time we were all brought down to the same level, where all that we have to hold onto are the things we can't see. That's what faith means.

Maybe you agree, maybe you don't, but either way, you should speak up about it.