I thought it necessary to share some brief comments on Bill Maher’s film “Religulous” a documentary intended to display the idiocy of religion. For me, this film is dangerous in the same sense that Fox News is dangerous. Both present a potent mix of entertainment, in order to capture and keep one’s attention, and misinformation. Unfortunately, I only have to time to address some of the more important issues Maher raises (I hope to write a follow-up in the near future).
Maher’s Conspicuous Bias
Maher concludes his film by calling for the de-religification (if Maher can create words, so can I!) of society. As I see it, once you go beyond ridiculing something that most Americans value and propose to make it extinct, you have a moral obligation to treat your opponents fairly (and the fact that this is “just” a comedic documentary doesn’t excuse Maher from this responsibility).
This leads me to Maher’s visit to the trucker’s chapel. Needless to say, this is not a likely place to find many Christians who are well instructed in their faith. The point is not to insult truckers, but to show that what Maher is doing is somewhat analogous to interviewing car mechanics about the laws of physics. True, they regularly apply physics concepts to their job. But are they expected to be capable of explaining them as physicists do? Why not interview the theologians, church historians and monastics who are in a better position to tell us how and why congregants of trucker’s chapels (and elsewhere) believe as they do.
Science and Religion
Neuroscience and Religion
During the interview with neuroscientist, Andrew Newberg, there were at least two occasions on which Maher represents Newberg’s study as constituting a threat to religion, although we’re not given a chance to hear Newberg’s response. We might have otherwise learned that Newberg does not regard the fact that we can detect brain movements that are linked to certain religious experiences as implying anything about the reality of those experiences. The following is a quote from Newberg’s website:
“Our research indicates that our only way of comprehending God, asking questions about God, and experiencing God is through the brain. But whether or not God exists ‘out there’ is something that neuroscience cannot answer. For example, if we take a brain image of a person when she is looking at a picture, we will see various parts of the brain being activated, such as the visual cortex. But the brain image cannot tell us whether or not there actually is a picture ‘out there’ or whether the person is creating the picture in her own mind. To a certain degree, we all create our own sense of reality. Getting at what is really real is the tricky part.”
Evolution
Not all Christians are creationists or biblical literalists. For example, the Roman Catholic Church has explicitly endorsed the theory of evolution. Maher seems to treat the Catholic astronomer’s assertion that the Bible shouldn’t be regarded as a scientific textbook as an embarrassing “admission”. Yet neither he nor Dawkins understands the different interpretive methods that non-Fundamentalists have traditionally employed. Most churches (including the Eastern Orthodox Church, to which I belong) do not insist that the Genesis account of creation be interpreted literally. The fundamentalism that Maher (and Dawkins) criticizes and equates with all of Christianity is, in reality, relatively new to the Christian scene.
Religion and Violence
To put it succinctly and bluntly, Maher’s (and Dawkin’s) reasoning is as follows: given all of the violence and intolerance committed in the name of Islam, Christianity is a bad religion. It’s like bombing Norway in retaliation for the Pearl Harbor attacks (or, to use a real-life example, bombing Iraq in response to the 9/11 attacks).
Faith
According to Maher, “faith makes a virtue out of not thinking.” No Christian instructed in his religion endorses this understanding of faith. Suppose some celebrity had recently confessed that he is gay, and the first place you find this reported is the National Enquirer. Assuming you know anything about this tabloid magazine, you’d likely take this story with a grain of salt. If, on the other hand, you see it reported on CNN (or whichever news source(s) you usually rely on), you’re more likely to take it at its word. Why is that, if not because you have some measure of faith (gasp!) in that news source? If we didn’t have such faith, we’d doubt most of everything there is to know, not just religion. After all, most of what we learn is not derived first-hand (and that’s more pathological than virtuous). As C.S. Lewis put it, "ninety-nine percent of the things you believe are believed on authority...A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life" (in Chapter 5 of Mere Christianity).
What many Christians take to be evidence for their faith isn’t given a fair hearing by many of the more militant nonbelievers, and this is because of their a priori rejection of anything supernatural. If, rather, you approach it with an open mind, you might come (as I have) to embrace the Christian faith. For the sake of argument, suppose that you do. In this case, there is no need to defend the truth of each and every teaching (e.g., the Virgin Birth) since you can logically infer its truth from the ultimate source (i.e., the teaching of the Church). In this regard, the Church’s teachings are a useful heuristic.
In short, the Christian is not thinking any less than he who accepts, on faith, the truth of what his favorite news source has reported. Sure, he might doubt the veracity of this and that story from time to time (hence, his faith is much weaker than the religious believer’s). However, this is only because he correctly understands that journalists are fallible human beings, whereas Christians believe that God is infallible (and doubting a God who you believe is inerrant is nothing less than irrational).
Maher’s Conspicuous Bias
Maher concludes his film by calling for the de-religification (if Maher can create words, so can I!) of society. As I see it, once you go beyond ridiculing something that most Americans value and propose to make it extinct, you have a moral obligation to treat your opponents fairly (and the fact that this is “just” a comedic documentary doesn’t excuse Maher from this responsibility).
This leads me to Maher’s visit to the trucker’s chapel. Needless to say, this is not a likely place to find many Christians who are well instructed in their faith. The point is not to insult truckers, but to show that what Maher is doing is somewhat analogous to interviewing car mechanics about the laws of physics. True, they regularly apply physics concepts to their job. But are they expected to be capable of explaining them as physicists do? Why not interview the theologians, church historians and monastics who are in a better position to tell us how and why congregants of trucker’s chapels (and elsewhere) believe as they do.
Science and Religion
Neuroscience and Religion
During the interview with neuroscientist, Andrew Newberg, there were at least two occasions on which Maher represents Newberg’s study as constituting a threat to religion, although we’re not given a chance to hear Newberg’s response. We might have otherwise learned that Newberg does not regard the fact that we can detect brain movements that are linked to certain religious experiences as implying anything about the reality of those experiences. The following is a quote from Newberg’s website:
“Our research indicates that our only way of comprehending God, asking questions about God, and experiencing God is through the brain. But whether or not God exists ‘out there’ is something that neuroscience cannot answer. For example, if we take a brain image of a person when she is looking at a picture, we will see various parts of the brain being activated, such as the visual cortex. But the brain image cannot tell us whether or not there actually is a picture ‘out there’ or whether the person is creating the picture in her own mind. To a certain degree, we all create our own sense of reality. Getting at what is really real is the tricky part.”
Evolution
Not all Christians are creationists or biblical literalists. For example, the Roman Catholic Church has explicitly endorsed the theory of evolution. Maher seems to treat the Catholic astronomer’s assertion that the Bible shouldn’t be regarded as a scientific textbook as an embarrassing “admission”. Yet neither he nor Dawkins understands the different interpretive methods that non-Fundamentalists have traditionally employed. Most churches (including the Eastern Orthodox Church, to which I belong) do not insist that the Genesis account of creation be interpreted literally. The fundamentalism that Maher (and Dawkins) criticizes and equates with all of Christianity is, in reality, relatively new to the Christian scene.
Religion and Violence
To put it succinctly and bluntly, Maher’s (and Dawkin’s) reasoning is as follows: given all of the violence and intolerance committed in the name of Islam, Christianity is a bad religion. It’s like bombing Norway in retaliation for the Pearl Harbor attacks (or, to use a real-life example, bombing Iraq in response to the 9/11 attacks).
Faith
According to Maher, “faith makes a virtue out of not thinking.” No Christian instructed in his religion endorses this understanding of faith. Suppose some celebrity had recently confessed that he is gay, and the first place you find this reported is the National Enquirer. Assuming you know anything about this tabloid magazine, you’d likely take this story with a grain of salt. If, on the other hand, you see it reported on CNN (or whichever news source(s) you usually rely on), you’re more likely to take it at its word. Why is that, if not because you have some measure of faith (gasp!) in that news source? If we didn’t have such faith, we’d doubt most of everything there is to know, not just religion. After all, most of what we learn is not derived first-hand (and that’s more pathological than virtuous). As C.S. Lewis put it, "ninety-nine percent of the things you believe are believed on authority...A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life" (in Chapter 5 of Mere Christianity).
What many Christians take to be evidence for their faith isn’t given a fair hearing by many of the more militant nonbelievers, and this is because of their a priori rejection of anything supernatural. If, rather, you approach it with an open mind, you might come (as I have) to embrace the Christian faith. For the sake of argument, suppose that you do. In this case, there is no need to defend the truth of each and every teaching (e.g., the Virgin Birth) since you can logically infer its truth from the ultimate source (i.e., the teaching of the Church). In this regard, the Church’s teachings are a useful heuristic.
In short, the Christian is not thinking any less than he who accepts, on faith, the truth of what his favorite news source has reported. Sure, he might doubt the veracity of this and that story from time to time (hence, his faith is much weaker than the religious believer’s). However, this is only because he correctly understands that journalists are fallible human beings, whereas Christians believe that God is infallible (and doubting a God who you believe is inerrant is nothing less than irrational).
