This movie, Religulous comes out soon. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCzpPKSJL70]
I used to be a huge fan of Bill Maher. In fact once upon a time his show, Politically Incorrect, was my favorite on late night TV. Although I don't get HBO, so I don't think I've ever seen his new show. I will almost surely watch this documentary. However, I know that his purpose is to make religion look dumb, and if Michael Moore has taught the world anything it's that you can make a documentary say anything.
My guess is that Bill Maher will ask the following question; why if there is a God is he telling everybody different stuff? Here's what I know. he will not talk to any brilliant Christian apologists. There will be no William Lane Craig, no J.P. Moreland, only some hicks and rednecks. This will only be an attack on religion.
So before anyone I know sees it, including me, here's a brief refutation of one point. I got the following quote from this article (I couldn't find any official information on the movie other than the trailer from the movie's website):
Maher’s point- that the world would be a better place without any religions, that wars would be eliminated and there would be universal understanding,
Let's examine this quote realistically and look at 3 atheists. None of these guys liked religion all declared that religion was a major problem for the world. In fact they each killed thousands of religious leaders.
- Stalin - according to the bastion of accuracy, Wikipedia, Stalin is responsible for 3 million deaths directly + about 10 million from the effects of his other policies
- Lenin - We will say conservatively that he is responsible for the deaths of 250,000
- Mao -The lowest estimate I have seen is 38 million
To be fair, the crusades probably killed 1.5 million, several hundred thousand were killed in the inquisition and witch trials, and millions in the post-reformation "religious wars" that were really political wars. But from the first list, does this seem like a peace-loving group of people? It's fine if you want to hate religion but don't assume we are all stupid. There are wars and bad junk in the world because people are bad, not because religion teaches us to think that we are right.