Posts Tagged belief

I don’t think I could ever be friends with a guy like Bill Maher, but then again, I’m kind of a jerk myself most of the time, so I’m sure he wouldn’t enjoy me much either.  I did however spend some quality time with him when I watched his documentary Religulous.  I found myself wishing I could spend an afternoon smoking a joint with him, lighting my hair on fire and laughing at all the ridiculousness brought to us by our dear friend, Religion.

Religulous is Bill Maher’s attempt to understand the reasons people believe what they believe, even in the face of hard questions that at times shake the faith down to the golden gonads.  He interviews truckers in a truck stop church, sellers of religious trinkets, Jesus himself - as played by an actor at the holyland theme park and many other indignant, confident and self affirming believers.

Let’s be fair.  Bill can be a bit of a dick.  He is pompous in a way that really gets your sacrificial goat.  But all that didn’t matter to me.  What mattered to me was what people said, didn’t say, couldn’t say or wouldn’t say while trying to defend their dogma to the obvious questions.  It was incredible to watch people get cornered by such seemingly trivial questions.  Like the genetic physicist who had to admit that the biographers of Jesus didn’t actually meet or know Jesus personally, and that they wrote down their accounts 10 or 20 years after the fact.  Or the trinket salesman who believed his life was laden with miracles; miracles that were the foundation of his life and transformation; who couldn’t come up with a real example, save for a rainstorm that he thinks was a sign from God.  Or the reformed homosexual minister, now married to a reformed homosexual woman, who had to admit that it is the Old Testament, which is supposedly no longer authoritative, condemns homosexuality and that Jesus actually never mentioned it.

For me, this movie didn’t really tell me anything I didn’t already know, but it reminded me with dark precision, just how little evidence we humans really need when it comes to our belief systems.  We trust what we’re told, and we can shape entire personal theologies and doctrines around the shakiest of stories.  That’s not to say that the fervor or sincerity wasn’t real.  The people in this movie are real people, not cardboard cutouts of stupid ass Americans.  (He does also dig a bit into Judaism, Islam and Mormonism, but for the most part sticks to the Evangelicals).  I implore the passion and the faith of the people pictured; but it’s a cautionary tale.  We all want something to believe in and no, we’re not stupid enough to let ourselves believe in something we know isn’t real.  We’re smart.  Bill makes a point of saying this.  But still, instead of facing some hard truths, we make sure that our belief is based on something we make ourselves believe is real, regardless of the evidence, and that let’s us sleep at night.  This was less an examination of the existence of God, but rather a story about empty belief that we just won’t acknowledge.  Let’s face it - most of what we believe is made up.  And I’m not talking about the words of the bible or the koran.  I’m talking about our interpretations and theologies and organizations that we extract and create from these books.  These books teach us faith, morality and justice; we invent everything else.

So I guess for now, I’ll preach the gospel according to Bill.  And that is basically, “We just don’t know”, so stop being stupid and live your life.