Religion a Determinant of Doucheness

Over the holiday weekend, I went to see Mongol and caught a glimpse of a new Bill Maher documentary. Its called Religulous and surprise! It's Bill Maher acting like a d!ck. The only thing that might save this movie, in a non-religious way, is the interviews with Andrew Newberg who is religion positive.

I really don't have anything against Bill Maher, but I hate it when people mock religion as though it only has destructive consequences. That and its cruel to attack something that is sacred to someone else and is a constructive force in their lives. I hope the movie at least says that not everything about organized religion and its followers are bad, because the trailer certainly doesn't.

I've written a lot about my stance on religion, and I'm thinking about getting a grad degree that deals with religion and peacebuilding. If someone says Jesus is their inspiration for feeding the poor, what's the problem? Assuming they're not doing something bastardish like cutting up chunks of Bible and adding to the soup, there should be no reason to attack belief in Jesus or any other faith tradition. And if someone is being an ass in the name of God, the concept of God deserves no more criticsm than the color shirt that person is wearing. God is incidental and unrelated to their behavior.

Religious beliefs (or absence of them) do not a douche bag make.

Also, Bill Maher can seem a little too self important for my taste. He carries himself as a moralist/political analyst first and then a comedian second and that's just a little disingenuous.

Anyway, I'm happy I got to use dirty words in the post. I won't do it too often.