Religulous: Borat-style satire on faith causes outrage
British release for controversial US movie will increase friction between atheists and believers
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The Pope caused global outrage last week when he suggested on a trip to Africa not only that Aids 'cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms' but that they 'even aggravate the problems'
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A Borat-style documentary lampooning the world's religions through interviews with their leaders is to open in Britain next week – and, if the US experience is anything to go, it is certain to spark controversy.
Religulous – the title is a provocative combination of "religion" and "ridiculous" – caused outrage across the Atlantic, with Catholics complaining they were the main target of the film, directed by Larry Charles. He also directed Borat, the satire on US mores starring Sacha Baron Cohen as the Kazakhstan reporter. The American comedian and satirist Bill Maher takes the Cohen role.
Maher has said that while the film was meant to be funny, it wasn't just meant to poke fun at religion, but demolish it. "I was raised a Catholic," he said, "but by the time I became an adult, scientific thought and rational evidence led me to believe otherwise. You know, when I was a kid and got a cavity, I had mercury drilled into my teeth. Then, when I got older, they drilled it out – and you can do the same with religion."
The film opens shortly after the Pope was condemned for suggesting condoms "aggravate the problem" of Aids, causing a frantic Vatican damage-limitation exercise.
Emboldened atheists have run slogans on the side of buses proclaiming "There is probably no God" – and a campaign by Christians to undermine that attracted record numbers of complaints last week to the Advertising Standards Authority.
Catholics are also under attack from peers and MPs, who are attempting to block plans to elevate Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, to the House of Lords. The move comes after reports that the cardinal may be offered a place in the Lords when he retires from his post as Archbishop of Westminster this year.
Opponents said the proposal to give the cardinal a peerage should be scrapped because of allegations that he "turned a blind eye" to paedophile priests when he was a bishop.
The philosopher AC Grayling, a professor at Birkbeck College in London, says the attacks on religion, especially Christianity, are a secular response to the increased religious "noise" since 9/11.
"There has been an amplification of noise from different religions since 9/11," he said. "And we are seeing a reaction from atheists. They are standing up and being counted because they don't like it. Throughout the world religious observation is diminishing. But after 9/11 the Muslim world had a higher profile and the other religions felt they needed to be as loud. The atheists are saying 'shut up'. What we are seeing is religion under pressure and being defeated.
"I'm tremendously looking forward to seeing Religulous. It comes in the same week that the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, made up of 57 Islamic countries, is trying to include a resolution into the United Nations Human Rights Committee to outlaw the defamation of religion."
Jonny Baker, who works for the Church Mission Society, which has been bringing missionaries from Africa to Britain for 20 years, said the film was just as intolerant as the religions it lampoons. "I saw it in America, and ironically it ended up being very fundamentalist," he said. "Bill Maher was just ranting to the camera, and that undermined the whole point of the film. There is a feeling in Africa that we are godless in the West and they'll come here and help us... Faith is important and transformative. People are interested in more in life than just shopping."
Pope Benedict XVI
Already in trouble for lifting the excommunication of a bishop who denied the Holocaust, the pontiff caused global outrage last week when he suggested on a trip to Africa not only that Aids 'cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms' but that they 'even aggravate the problems'.
The cardinal
MPs and peers are aghast at the prospect of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, being elevated to the House of Lords. They cite allegations that he 'turned a blind eye' to paedophile priests when he was a bishop.
'Religulous'
Larry Charles, the director of Borat, turns his cameras on religion, with the US satirist Bill Maher taking the Sacha Baron Cohen role of asking the world's religious leaders impertinent questions – often after fooling them into agreeing to be quizzed.
Atheist bus
The British Humanist Association raised £100,000 in four days to pay for a slogan on 800 buses across the country that read: 'There's probably no God'. The Advertising Standards Authority received more than 1,000 complaints when a Christian group responded with a slogan proclaiming there is a God.
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Comments
The questions asked are very pertinent, and should be asked by more people.
The interviewees weren't "fooled" into being quizzed - however, they do seem to be objecting to having to face some revealing or awkward questions.
Shopping can kiss my arse and so can you Jonny. Delusional muppets like you are delaying evolution. Grow up ffs
Laconico, can you explain to me how evolution is 'being delayed'? surely evolution is a natural process which will occur regardless of the way human beings decide as free agents to try and find meaning to their existance?
still, at least you're going after the big targets eh?
http://theunpeople.blogspot.com/
http://theunpeople.blogspot.com/
If you're going to worship a man who molested a child or believe in a man who supposedly walked on water - you should be prepared to be mocked.
if they try and repeat the orders from at least 1400 years ago they must accept to be jugded and mocked at by todays standards.
Furthermore, what is your quarrel with Judaism? If it so happens that Jewish people work hard and help each other, then surely they merit the benefits that follow.
Do not forget the great Jewish geniuses such as Freud, Einstein, Marc Chagall and Woody Allen, who contributed so much to the world in terms of science, art and literature.
Regards.
as you seem to know so much about so many interesting things and also have pictures to proove your point, please, do tell me , Can I get a picture of God on the internet? If so where,? Is He disguised as something else? Perhaps a palestinian child that was shot dead due to operation cast lead or perhaps a jew who lost his life due to a terror attack, or that brave young woman, jade Goody, who is dying of cancer in the public eye so that she can provide for her family after her death? I am so looking forward to having it framed. I would really appreciate your help. thanks
Some variation on this line seems to lie at the heart of most critiques of vocal atheism these days, as if religions are allowed to continue being as intolerant as they like (and a lot more besides) but atheists should keep quiet about it, or, if the worst comes to the worst mumble quietly in disagreement...
One does not need religious faith to find more in life than shopping. Believing only in the material world does not mean that one has to make a fetish of material possessions.
OzQuaker
Taking the contents of a holy book at face value, no matter how admirable some of the sentiments may be, and even if you do confine yourself to cherry-picking the bits that suit your own ethical system (which itself must be derived from elsewhere), is still a trumping of the supernatural over the use of the faculties of reason and observation to explain the world in which we live- and it is this which is the root of the problem.
Since masss immigration to europe we have all been expected to allow anyone with a brown skin and a religion to be immune from criticism and to claim special privileges such as immunity from criticism. THAT is racist. And that influx of backwards peasants led, through misplaced multiculturalism, to their asserting their religions and telling others that they were not allowed to ever criticise thosew religions - all very unBritish and sick, more 17th century than 21st. Sadly, our leaders surrendered, so now, when over 50% of teachers in UK schools believe they should teach creationism as an equivalent of evolution in science lessons, so as not to offend the religious (usually black or brown students), we have to FIGHT the religious bigots who are against the pluralistic and humanistic values that underpin our civilisation. The irony is that Man's creation of religion proves Darwin right - a tribe united in a beliefe system is good, a highly developed human imagination also promotes survival. Needless to say, evolution is a fact and religion is learned imagination and myth - nothing more.
Time for atheists to go on the attack. It is MY RIGHT to mock your stupid religion - especially as I know more about the history of religions and how sick they are than most religious people. Read some history.
We in Britain are not the puritan USA where over 60% go to church every week - a less than 5% do in the UK, and many of them are black immigrants. And in particular, England (not wales or scotland or ireland) has shown the way: you keep your religion private and don't shove it in others' faces. In the usa, atheists are murdered and bullied - Obama can be black/mixed race, but if he were an atheists he'd never have got elected. Their problem.
I am at present working on a book that lampoons and mocks muslims and many others - needles to say no publisher will touch it. No problem - I own and run my own media company so will piblich it myself.
I valued your contribution. Thank you. You appear very angry and I can understand that since many things have been, and continue to be, perpetrated in the name of 'religion'. I, too, stand in solidarity with those, like you, who confront those principalities and powers who are destructive and oppressive, and especially if they are 'religious' in the conventional sense for, at heart, all the great religions promote peace, justice and mercy. It is we humans. of course, who behave badly.
Anger is not a bad thing in itself, as you may agree. But I also hope you agree that it needs channelling in creative, positive and undestructive ways, ways that bring hope purpose and vision.
I'm interested why your anger is SO important to you, as it does appear to be. I wonder what it is actually saying to you?
OzQuaker
The only reason religion survives is the brain washing of children by their parents. Maybe one day the human race will grow up - but I doubt it.
Again, I can understand your anger. I've been there, too. About 'RD' - I presume you mean Richard Dawkins. Ilike much of what he says and, yes, as a religious person, I, too, believe in evolution and am one with Professor Dawkins in his view of fundamentalism. But why doesn't he ever engage in conversation with people such as Desmond Tutu, Timothy Radcliffe (the Dominican friar) or others such as Jean Luc Marion or James Allison (the openly gay English Catholic priest)? Are these 'immature' people? Surely not! I hopeyou both can agree that such conversations would be illuminating. As for not having an image of God, Wormery, I wonder if that is true? Actually, you have spent a great deal of energy angrily describing such a God. You DO have such an image as I'm sure other readers can see. And, as I said before, it is the God that lurks in the consciousness of atherist and fundamentalist alike.
OzQuaker
Let's show the film.....on prime time, mainstream television.
Let's show the film in schools.
Can I add. Murderous Holy Wars, the Crusades. Responsible for 300-400 years of the "DARK AGES". Murder and torture for those who would not convert. Subjugation and outlandish taxes (to pay for the Holy Wars) to those it conquered. Spanish Inqusition. Hypocracy and Criminality. Just to name a few.
Is there something wrong with being Jewish?
As for the movie, I haven't seen it but surely we should all be able to accept folks mocking all our views, religious or not?
"As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?"
Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.
"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come
Religion is no more damning than secularism. Greater death and misery has been caused in the name of secular ways of life than in religious ones - WWI, WWII took many more deaths, rapes, abuses and displacements than all conflicts caused by religions throughout time added together. There are negatives and benefits to both religion and secularism as ways of life, but both are dangerous in the hands of dangerous leaders who initiate conflict in the name of their way of life: George Bush (democracy - killed over 1million Iraqis), Stalin (communism - killed 25million Russians), Osama Bin Laden (Islam [his interpretation of] c12,000), Hitler (WWII for Nazism - 25million), Catholic Inquisition under various Popes and Catholic monarchs (c380,000)... the list is endless but add up the numbers and there is no doubt that secular ideologies have caused greater death and misery; in a far shorter time period too. Good, fair leaders, whether religious or secular, can bring peace and prosperity for all - both advocate such (regardless of fanatics and extremists who re-interpret to their convenience). Just depends on the leaders you get.
Perhaps the popularity of secularism, regardless of its poor record as a way of life, lies in the fact that people prefer to determine their own standards of morality and way of life than be advised by an unseen God. For example, it means you can sleep with as many partners as you like, spread disease around, treat people badly without caring about the consequences and mental impact on those you use. You can be greedy and not care about the poor or those of other cultures that your culture steals from.
By the way - the definition of secularism 'the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from religion and/or religious beliefs'. Which means that communism and fascism (the big killers) are secular!
A film such as Religulous is a great idea. I am an agnostic, I do not pontificate,or throw my views around [ normally ] but I do note in any argument it's the religious who get the most het up when questions or disputes erupt.
Faith is a private and personal thing , that is where it should stay , in someone's head !! All this nonsense of men walking around in strange clothes and funny hats or daily grovelling on the floor, is risible.
When it comes to the sight of millions worshipping a rock or millions dying because one old man [ who clearly has no idea ] says 'do not' wear protection against disease, you see how utterly controlling ' religion ' is.
This is not faith it's religion designed purely by man for control and power.
I presume this means that this film lampoons ALL RELIGIONS, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Wicca/Withcraft, etc. ??
It seems from comments made that only the Catholics seem to think they are being ridiculized - not so, I hope. Let's get all the other religious followers in on the story.
Bill Maher goes on an ego-trip in his normal bolshy way, some funny moments in places but there aren't many.