In his film, “Expelled”, Ben Stein interviews articulate individuals who have risen to the highest ranks of academia, including professors, award winning biologists, and even the big daddy himself; celebrated New York Times best selling author Richard Dawkins, whom many consider to be the the modern spokesperson for what some have dubbed, “Evangelical Atheism”.

In stark contrast, in his film, “Religulous”, Bill Mahr interviews a group of possibly mildly retarded, toothless Southern truckers, a dim witted Senator whom admits that you don’t have to pass an IQ test to be a senator, some no-name actor at an amusement park who plays the role of Jesus in a play, another ‘nobody’ who started his own private ministry because he believes that he can pray the gayness out of homosexuals, and a number of other random non-accomplished, uneducated whack jobs. In the entire film, he interviews just two individuals who have even the thinnest shred of credibility (and it’s no coincidence that these happened to be the only times in the film when Bill Mahr didn’t really disagree with anything).

Some of the things in the documentary just paint religion as this evil empire out to get you.

He says that the words love your neighbor as yourself are killing this world? The bible is evil?

Alot of people dont follow this and claim to be christians. Thats not the fault of religion that’s the fault of people.

I did like the movie though …

But I do not feel that he made his case for the apocalyptic conclusion, voiced over images of disaster and mushroom clouds, that, essentially, religion will eventually destroy us.

I think that fundamentalist religion has already destroyed us. I’ve become convinced that beings who are perfectly comfortable with the idea of abandoning billions of their human siblings to an unimaginably obscene fate, for all of eternity, simply cannot solve their problems. And there are hundreds of millions, if not billions, who think this way.

This is a terminal species. All that’s left is for the fat lady to sing.

(My apologies to the voluminously challenged.)

That, along with many other reasons, is why I ultimately didn’t like the film all that much. And I am a lifelong atheist who welcomes the increased exposure and debate regarding religion, but I’m still debating within myself just how much of a service this film does for us.

I suppose ultimately that we benefit from a mainstream treatment of the subject, so I am grateful for that.

As far as the interviews go, I’m sure there was a bit of creative editing for the sake of entertainment but, there was a great assortment (in my opinion) of people Maher chose to talk with, as well as locations. He talked to people on all levels as well – church-goers, Jesus impersonators, park patrons, televangelists, priests, scientists, Muslim rappers, “converted” homosexuals, shop owners…

I think Maher did a pretty good job when it came to selecting a variety of believers to speak with for this movie, and thought it was excellent.

Maher shores up little credibility for his cause by refusing to talk with any opponent with an ounce of nuance of theological rigor.

Don’t they all say this? “I will reject all other religions/sects with just a glance, but if you don’t believe MY branch, then you just haven’t studied hard enough.”

It’s not quite the Courtier’s Reply, but let’s call it the Greta Christina Reply (she’s one of the best atheist bloggers, so there are several Greta Christina Replies).

At one point (in the “Trucker’s Church”) a congregant gets pissed and walks out. Bill just pauses, looks at the rest of the group and shrugs and says “I’m just asking questions.”

That was pretty much the even-handed tone throughout (except occasionally when he goes for the obvious absurd joke – pretending to be a crazy homeless person espousing the tenets of Scientology and so on).

The end is the best part, when he addresses the camera and says we need to “Grow up or die”. It’s just what we’ve got to do.