Religulous

Whoever has seen this "documentary," I'd like to hear from you.

For those that haven't seen it yet, basically, this film is based on Bill Maher's stance on religion in general. His stance against it also brings about the idea of Doubt. Anyway, here's my opinion...

The film SUCKS as a documentary. Okay, his film is about doubt and skepticism. It's an attempt to debunk religious ideology. None the less, the quality as a documentary is supremely skewed and subjective to the issue of the proposition. I'll admit though, that I'm presenting a bias since I am a believer, however, his viewpoints have no ground and are backed by weak arguments.

Issue #1: Interviewees
The people he interviewed were people who have not had formal training or education in the area of apologetics or theology. Bill apparently goes to random people and asks them questions about their faith and evidence to believe in such matter. My issue with this is that congregations of certain faiths generally don't put the time and energy into researching their beliefs, they simply just have faith.

Mr. Maher could have easily gone to someone from a school of study to find "answers" to his questions. Instead, he goes to small church's, amusement parks, and random train stations to get his "answers". Come on Bill, if you're going to produce a film for the public in hopes of debunking religion, why are you going to regular people rather than going to experts?

Issue #2: The "Gay" Gene
This topic is very sensitive because there are thousands of people in the world who proclaim themselves as "gay". Bill interviews a pastor who used to be gay and tries to discredit his belief and sexual orientation.

The issue arises when the pastor explains that he participated in homosexuality rather than being outright homosexual. He believes that "gays" in general participate in homosexuality but are not homosexual by nature. Afterall, there IS a reason for a differentiation in genetalia right?

Well, not to Bill Maher, because he introduces the idea of a "gay gene" which some scientist has "found". My issue with this is that, the idea isn't thoroughly explained. I would have LOVED to hear about this said gene and the means to it's discovery. There are 23 chromosomes in the body, and a piece of one of the 23 has a code that says a person is gay.

My qualm with this idea is that, genetic DNA is exhaustively complex and complicated. If Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, said that the cell is more complex than any supercomputer known to man, how much more complicated do you think DNA and the genetic code might be?

Issue #3: False Experts
This is in relation to my first issue, but a little different. Not only does Bill Maher interview people who have not had formal education in theology, but he interviews people who CLAIM to be experts! He even makes fun of them in their faces for not knowing scripture.

I can understand that these people are doing wrong in obtaining profit from their actions as said "evangelists", however this has no bearing to his cause in debunking religion. Again, the social impact of religion has nothing to do with the cause of the proposition of whether or not God exists.

My Verdict
I stick to my guns in saying this documentary sucks. Although there are other issues I have with the film, my main objections are that he interviews people with no formal training, makes claims to ideas without showing evidence, and interviews false experts. Way to go Bill, you've shown the world that atheists are too scared to face the truth.

Event: Does God Exist?

There was a debate yesterday at Biola University here in So Cal. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend. However, there IS an objective article that covered the event which can be found on my alumni newspaper at The Daily Titan.

Relation
The debaters (William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens) duked out their whits of knowledge on the Biola University campus. Dr. Craig being the scholared theist and Hitchens as the devoted atheist.

In my school's article, Hitchens brought out a point that Bill Maher tried to point out in his recent film "Religulous,"basically about the social impact on religion. I posted a response to the matter previously in The Violent Ones. And as much as I stand by my answer by diverting it to an issue of morality, Dr. Craigs answer holds to be more true.

"The social impact of religion is irrelevent to the truth of the proposition," was the response given by Craig, and I couldn't agree more.

What To Look For
As stated previously, unfortunately, I was not at the event. However, you can count on me to keep you posted on new events regarding what this blog is all about. Keep an eye out for my take on the movie, "Religulous". As much as I wish I could use Dr. Craigs answer for this film, there are more issues of the film itself that I'd like to address for Mr. Bill Maher.