Religulous: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

In its premise, Bill goes through a journey across the U.S. and other parts of the world talking to people, while looking for the answer to this question: Why do people accept the fantastic stories and teachings that religions preach? As is evidenced by the title of the movie, though (a [[Portmanteau]] of "religion" and "ridiculous"), Bill Maher already has some opinions on the matter that he'd like to pass on to the audience.

* [[Ho Yay]]: [[Irony|At the end of the aforementioned interview with John Westcott]]. Serves as a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] also.

* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: When filming in the Dome of the Rock, Bill asks his guide if Islam discriminates against women, the guide denies this and then points that [[Some of My Best Friends Are X|women have their own corner in which they can pray]].

** It's even funnier because that park was used by nutjobs to preach outlandish beliefs, and ''even then'', the real beliefs of Scientology looked crazier by comparison.

* [[Manipulative Editing]]: A number of interviews Bill Maher conducted were later revealed to involve this, as several sources reported:

** Two other scientists, Dean Hamer and Andrew Newberg, were also victims of selective editing, [http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/agnostic_machinery/ as this article in Seed Magazine shows].

* [[Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions]]: Invoked by Bill at the end of the film with the demand that the audience "grow up or die."

* [[Quote Mine]]: Some of Bill's interviews are heavily edited or conducted on misleading premises. See [[Manipulative Editing]] above.

** Bill Maher quotes [[John Adams]] as saying "This best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." In reality, Adams meant [http://blog.beliefnet.com/stevenwaldman/2008/10/the-case-against-religulous-ta.html the complete opposite], as the context (from a letter to [[Thomas Jefferson]] back in 1817) shows.

* [[Stealth Insult]]: Bill makes this several times in his interviews, the one that takes the cake is the aforementioned interview with Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda.

* [[Surprisingly Similar Stories]]: Invoked by Bill to point out the similarities between the stories of [[Jesus]] and other deities like Mithra, Bacchus, Horus and many more. Of course, there's a slight problem in that the stories of Mithra, Horus, Bacchus and many more are [[Sadly Mythtaken|not really like what Bill Maher thinks]].

* [[You Keep Using That Word]]: During an interview with a United States Senator who believes in creationism, he uses the word "indigous", which the subtitles note isn't really a word ([[Don't Explain the Joke|he was probably thinking of "indigenous"]]).