After watching Religulous,
I felt as if atheism was being thrown onto me. Personally, I am very
interested in the sciences. Biology is my major and I find it remarkable to
learn how everything works and where the organisms living today have come from.
So it would seem that I like to have answers for everything, and that would be
correct. But what bothered me in this film was that it felt as if Atheism was
the only correct option in this debate. I consider myself a semi-religious
person. I believe that there is a higher up power, and I also like to look for
proof, but my proof doesn’t have to be the same as the proof of Bill Maher. I
completely support the idea of Evolution, but my only difference is that I
believe there is some other force out there that can control what is around us.
I may be right; I may be wrong, but I found it kind of insulting to have my
ideas shot down in a biased documentary. If this documentary offered both sides
of the debate, and with that information proved my opinion wrong, I would be
more willing to accept it. However, since Bill Maher and his crew, although
they were very educated about the topic, took a stance that completely attacked
my beliefs, I felt pressured in that my ideas were wrong. For an Atheist, this
documentary would be perfect and hilarious, but for me, some parts were funnier
than others and ended up making a documentary that contradicted my ideals.
I think this is a good experience for you as a "semi-religious" person because it puts you in the shoes of an atheist in regular society today. You mentioned that you felt as if atheism was shoved down your throat...maybe an atheist feels that religion is shoved down their throat when God is mentioned in the country's Pledge of Allegiance, or that the saying "In God we Trust" appears on every dollar bill. It's important to experience the world from another person's vantage point because it shows you things that you may not have thought about otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI happen to fall into the category of people that found this documentary absolutely hilarious. But that's not to say I don't agree that Bill Maher has some ridiculous moments in the film. Even though I tend to learn more towards an atheistic view of the world, I agree that he made it seem as if this was only way.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I agree. It should have lended itself to being more of an "open" discussion. It felt one-sided.
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