Religulous
Sep 28th, 2008 by craig
Next week Bill Maher has a movie coming out, Religulous. Unfortunately, it’s from the same director as Borat (I really didn’t like Borat). Religulous is a documentary about religion, and as you can imagine, coming form Bill Maher, it’s a comedy and will probably be pretty funny. I’m a little ambivalent about seeing it – I’m worried that no matter how funny Bill Maher finds some things, those religious fanatics he’s bound to come across will irritate me.
What has caught my attention, and prompted this post, is something Bill Maher said on Larry King back in August. You can see the segment here. He says a lot of interesting things, I particularly like the way he ends the segment (“At some point, mankind is going to have to shed this skin if he’s going to move forward.”), but something that really struck me is what he says about the number of “rationalists.” He says they represent “somewhere around 16% of people” which he says is a greater percentage than any other minority, “bigger than Blacks, or Jews, or Homosexuals, or NRA members, Teachers Union, Hispanics….” I felt compelled to check his numbers, and found that indeed that seems to be the case. According to census results from 2000 (which have been compiled into a Wikipedia article you can see here) the percentage of those that list themselves as No Religion/Atheist/Agnostic is 15%. The next closest racial minority was Hispanics or Latinos at 14.8% and Blacks or African Americans at 13.4%. Interestingly, the Jewish percentage is only 1.4%. There are roughly 4 million NRA members, so that percentage would be about 1.3%. The numbers I could find on Homosexuals indicate somewhere around 1.5%. The NEA (National Education Association) has 3.2 million members, or about 1.1%. So indeed it appears that the rationalists outnumber just about any other minority.
A larger minority than any other minority, yet they’re surprisingly silent. That got me wondering: if there are so many of these folks, why so quiet? I believe there are two major reasons for this. First, rationalists have no compulsion to convert. There is no need. The universe, the world, America…, it all is what it is and our “beliefs” or the “beliefs” or those around us are irrelevant. “The universe is, so far as I know, indifferent to what you believe or disbelieve.” Secondly, the very nature of the dialogue precludes any positive outcome. When one side of an argument uses as its proof un-documentable evidence there is no way to have meaningful discourse either in favor of or in opposition to that position. A rationalist will always think: “What are the facts? Again and again and again—what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the un-guessable “verdict of history”—what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!” A religious or spiritual person will try to say that things are what they are despite the facts.
Encouragingly, the “rationalist” numbers are growing at a much more rapid pace than any other group, up 6.6% since 1990. The total Christian categories are down 8.5%. This becomes even more telling when you recognize that many of those Christian categories do have active proselytizing programs (LDS down 0.1%, Jehovah’s Witnesses down 0.1%) and the “rationalist” movement is noticeably quiet. The largest increase among Christians was the “Christian – no denomination reported” which was up 2.5%. That doesn’t strike me as real positive for the organized religions.
Thanks for the pre-review, Craig! As I mentioned on my blog the other day, I am really looking forward to this movie. I think it will be very interesting – and with Maher involved, hysterically funny. I understand your irritation… it can be really frustrating to try and reason with people who refuse to acknowledge facts. Humor is the only way to get through it a bit…
An interesting thing is that many people believe Bill Maher to be an atheist – he isn’t (last I checked). He says he believes in God – in some form, some power – and that religion just thinks religion is stupid/evil/whatever…. a man made invention to justify all sorts of biases. Here’s a quote.
“I’m not an atheist. There’s a really big difference between an atheist and someone who just doesn’t believe in religion. Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don’t need. But I’m not an atheist, no. I believe there’s some force. If you want to call it God… I don’t believe God is a single parent who writes books. But I do believe in a God, yes.”
Come over to Seattle this week and let’s go see it together!
Maher chafes at being labeled an atheist. “I think it mirrors the certitude of religion,” he explains. “What I’m against is certitude. They’re so sure, these people, what happens when you die, which is preposterous.”
What he’s preaching, he says, is doubt and the belief that it deserves as much tolerance as faith.
“People have to understand: Religion, your faith: It’s just an opinion. And it’s no better than my opinion because you’re claiming it’s sacred,” he says. “It’s just an opinion, and when we look at it up close, we see it’s a pretty whack opinion.”
Allison – I really like the way Maher says that “they would call me an atheist” but that he prefers rationalist. That’s a great quote you have from him, claiming sacred shouldn’t give an opinion any more credibility.
Also, did you see how he answered the question about why God doesn’t destroy the devil: he compared it to the same reason that comic book villians are never actually destroyed, without the villan, the hero has no story. Religions have to have the opposition in order to capitalize on all the things that they capitalize on – to stay in business if you will. He says it much better than I am at the end of that segment on Larry King.
So, have you seen the movie yet? Will it make me cranky?
Yes – I saw the movie on Sunday and laughed myself to tears in sections. I about died at one of the very first scenes… something you’ll appreciate…. it was the man gazing into the water over the bridge with the deep voice saying “Who am I? How did I come to be? “….. yes – you know it – “Mans Search For Happiness“…. (for some reason, the voice in this clip reminds me of the old star trek shows)
It really is hysterical, though bits of it could make you cranky. But mostly funny. He treats those he interviews respectfully – no name calling or anything, just genuinely asks questions and occasionally makes a comedic remark. Most of these people totally set themselves up to look ridiculous.
The first half is beyond funny. Some of my favorite parts were his interviews with his mother – she’s a crack up.
The 2nd half slows down a bit (though still has hilarious moments) but Bill leads up to a bit of his own preaching the value of doubt, reason, higher thinking. There’s really no escaping going there – but it was a bit heavier/slower than the rest of the film. A few of the people will make you nuts, but overall I think you’ll laugh and be grateful to have someone using his critical thinking skills, asking legitimate questions….
Go see it. I’d like to hear your thoughts.
Sounds pretty good… Especially interviewing his mother. That must be great.
I don’t know if I’ll make it to the theatre, I tend to wait for things to come on video these days. So it’s definately on my Netflix list. I’ll have to reveiw it when I see it.