How do people believe utter fiction when it is so obviously nonsensical? That's sort of the question Bill Maher attempts to answer in this movie, but it's not a stodgy documentary. It is instead a funny, in-your-face, well-reasoned examination of how religion is still possible.
The answer? People turn off the part of their brain that works when they engage in religion -- as Maher shows us again and again with his various interviews. When confronted with reason and rationality, every single one of his subjects has to resort to utter nonsense. You can actually watch their eyes glaze over as they fall into the repetition of ridiculous double-talk they have been taught as answers. And the frustration on Maher's face as he continues to run into these walls of inanity makes it all the funnier.
There's not much more to say. This is a great Friday-night date movie, a wonderful comedy about human nature, and more. It asks the big questions and then makes you realize we don't know the answers.
Perhaps we should focus on things we do have answers to -- like getting along together and reducing suffering.
The answer? People turn off the part of their brain that works when they engage in religion -- as Maher shows us again and again with his various interviews. When confronted with reason and rationality, every single one of his subjects has to resort to utter nonsense. You can actually watch their eyes glaze over as they fall into the repetition of ridiculous double-talk they have been taught as answers. And the frustration on Maher's face as he continues to run into these walls of inanity makes it all the funnier.
There's not much more to say. This is a great Friday-night date movie, a wonderful comedy about human nature, and more. It asks the big questions and then makes you realize we don't know the answers.
Perhaps we should focus on things we do have answers to -- like getting along together and reducing suffering.