Religulous

I just saw Bill Maher's Religulous -- what a thought-provoking, hilarious film. He's such a smart man. I think it's far more courageous to admit doubt than to rotely quote tenets of any faith that discourage thinking. He asked this question of a woman at the Holy Lands "park" in Florida - "If you had been told Jack & the Beanstalk, for example, was part of the Bible and Jonah and the Whale a fairy tale, would you believe the Jack story to be true?" in order to get her to think, not to be condescending.

The problem with the people who refuse to think for themselves is that they take so many crazy ideas literally, as the word of their god, and refuse to admit doubt, to examine, to question. I could identify with Bill when he said that, after his Catholic upbringing, the teachings of his childhood and youth linger, despite his present lack of religious practice (when he was 40, he tried to make a deal with God - he'd quit smoking if God would get him through a difficult situation in his life). I too, in times of desperation, returning to the powerful God I knew in my youth, have tried deal-making with Her/Him despite my present doubts as to whether Anyone's out there.

I think it's true that if 16% of Americans are agnostic/atheist, they need to feel free to discuss it openly without harrassment - the problem is, based just on the reaction I know I'd get from my family, I would be pitied and prayed for and cried over, and I don't want that. I also don't think I would be able to say anything to enable them to accept that I have my beliefs just as I accept that they have theirs. I've, for a long time, been quite open about my feelings that the violence that's been done in the name of religion turns me off to organized religion in general, that the mixing of church & state is definitely not what our forefathers wanted (Bill discusses that as well), and that the treatment of women in both the Old and New Testaments is not what my God would desire or condone.

I'll write more about this later. In the meantime, please go see this movie.