“Religulously” Wrong

On September 7, 2011, I watched a 2.25 hour movie (that’s 2 hours, 15 minutes) called [name removed!] hosted by “comedian” Bill Maher who confronted evangelical Christians, orthodox Jews, Muslim extremists, Mormons, Scientologists, even a guy who claims to be Jesus Christ in an “irreverent” (says the program listing) satire of contradictions in their belief systems. This didn’t really bother me, but what did shame me are some “answers” given by “Christians” in the movie.  There are better answers.

But Maher’s philosophy is best summed by his own statements (and I quote):

And anyone that tells you that they [the Christians and other “believers”, apparently] just *know* what happens when you die [finger pointing]—I promise you, you don’t.  How can I be so sure?  Because I don’t know.  And you do not possess mental powers that I do not. The only appropriate attitude for a man to have about the big questions [about God, or the Bible] is not the arrogant certitude that’s the hallmark of religion, but doubt.  Doubt is humble…

Wow… Really?  Okay—first, if you don’t know, it doesn’t mean it’s not true.  And you can’t possibly know something is not true if you don’t know it or even believe it.  It just means you don’t know better.  You cannot truthfully acknowledge what you don’t believe in your heart, but you can’t kick against the pricks either.

Second, I (as a Christian) don’t possess mental powers, either—and so how can *I* be so sure about my own beliefs?  Because “I cannot but speak the things that I’ve seen and heard” (Acts 4:20—happens to Christians).

Third, the Bible tells you what happens when you die (Hebrews 9:27, among quite a few others).  That’s a far cry from “I don’t know.”  It wasn’t dreamed up out of thin mountainous air.

Fourth, arrogant certitude is not the hallmark of Christianity for a person who is a seasoned Christian; it’s prayer, humility, and faith.  If that’s arrogance to you, you’re in trouble.

Finally, doubt is the opposite of faith.  Without faith, it is impossible to please God, the Scripture says in Hebrews 11.  We’re not going to add anything to this to make it palatable to you, even with sugar—for that would be worse for both of us.  Doubt pleases only Satan, “that old serpent… which deceiveth the whole world” (Revelation 12:9).  He wants you to doubt God, distrust Him.  There’s nothing humbling about doubt.  Faith is a virtue.

Have you ever considered that there is only one God?  If so, why then are there different religions?  Have you not realized that all religions are counterfeits of the real thing, even inasmuch as there are counterfeit money floating around?  If something is to be a counterfeit, there must of necessity be something genuine to counterfeit in order to fool or confuse people—because otherwise if there is no genuine entity to counterfeit, then we know it’s a lie or just fiction.

The obvious example of a counterfeit, which goes without saying, is the hundred dollar bill—which, I’ll admit, is simple.  But things profound are derived from simple concepts.

We know a hundred dollar bill is genuine and not a counterfeit.  Right?  We know it exists because we’ve seen it used.  Enter the counterfeit hundred dollar bill. You can’t use it, right?  No, you can use it—you don’t know it’s a counterfeit, so you do use it.  You were fooled.  Why were you fooled?  Because you thought the counterfeit bill was the real thing, a genuine bill.  And you thought that way because you knew the genuine hundred dollar bill existed.

Plug in any word you want to replace the words “hundred dollar bill” in the above paragraph.  A church, religion, diamonds, stores (can be just a front), antiques, even non-fiction books (I read one which turned out to be false representation of “facts”, deliberate lies), the ol’ sales pitch—any word, as long as it’s a genuine, true entity that exists.

But plug in something not genuine, a false entity, something that doesn’t exist—like Santa,  UFOs (if you believe in UFOs, we’ll consider ’em false entities, okay?), martians, Mr. Ed the talking horse, Lassie, the Wizard of Oz… got it?

Now, why don’t you believe they’re genuine?  Because you’ve never seen a genuine one.  (I thought Lassie was a genuine dog named Lassie, but it’s just a fictional dog.  I was young, but now I know.)  The point is you can’t counterfeit a known false entity.  

That means if something is a counterfeit, then you know something genuine is being counterfeited. 

So, it follows that if something is truly a counterfeit of something genuine, then you know one of the counterfeits is not a counterfeit at all. 

But your next statement might be to point out, “There are no counterfeits (of a particular entity), therefore they are all false.”  Now, wait a second.  Give me an example of this.  If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll realize that if there are no counterfeits, then they are all what?  True.  Woe to them that call evil good and good evil.

Okay, the obvious entity I’m talking about is religion.  Everyone knows there are a lot of different religions.  That tells me that one religion—if it can be called that, for it is an oxymoron: Jesus hates religion—is being counterfeited.  What is not known is which religion is not a counterfeit.  After all, does it not say, “one body… one Spirit… one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all…” (Ephesians 4:4-6)?  If there is one body, then there is one church, be it a local church or one universal church that comprise a whole bunch of local churches worldwide… because these churches are one in Jesus Christ, because there is unity in the faith and in doctrine.

I think that’s enough said.  God can help you with the rest.

Oh, you want the title of the movie?  “Religulous.”  Yeah, religion is ridiculous; but it’s more than that, because Jesus hates it.  Even the title is ridiculous.