Absolutely Religulous

Well, it was kind of like a bug's attraction to the light. Or, maybe more like the "Don't look...don't look...ahh, you looked" reaction when we see a car wreck beside the freeway. You know you don't want to and yet you do it anyway. That's kind of what it was like.

I went to see Bill Maher's documentary Religulous on the weekend. It was one of those films where I know I didn't want to see it but I had to see it. To be fair, I laughed. Out loud. Fairly often. But often, when I laughed, I felt like I was cheering for the visiting team.

If you haven't seen the film, basically he makes fun of anything with even a hint of fundamentalism (and, let's be honest, there's much to make fun of here!) and then moves on to outline the conspiracy theorist's view of Jesus: he never really existed and his story was simply lifted from other ancient religions. There are books published on this topic that outline how his story has many parallels with gods worshiped in various religions and these are put forth as evidence that Jesus never really existed but was just a made up myth.

These theories made me think more than anything in the film because I'm not religious; I'm a follower of Jesus. So, while I can laugh at the trappings of religion, I have a much more difficult time laughing at the non-existence of Jesus. But there are a lot of holes that can quickly be shot through these theories. For example, it's pretty hard to retrofit a philosopher into a philosophic school of thinking. Either there was a Plato, or there was not. I can't just make up stories about Plato now and try to fit them into history. It doesn't work. Likewise, there was a school of thought and belief surrounding this person of Jesus years (decades) before the first book about him was written. If the books were of sketchy origin, who would have read them?

But here's what I have come to realize: books that are written and films that are produced that say Jesus never existed don't actually mean anything. See, somewhere down in history, someone could say Brent never existed because there was someone in some other culture or in some other era whose life had many parallels to mine. So, because of that, Brent must be a figment of someone's imagination. Even if that happened, I'm still here. And so is Jesus.

At the end of the film, Maher stands on a pile of rocks and begins preaching about the fact that his whole purpose in making the film is to create doubt in people's minds. ...and we're back on the same ground. Truth is, I can't have faith without doubt. Unless I have reason to doubt, faith simply isn't required.

And to that end, I have faith that Jesus lived. I have faith that Jesus lives. And I have faith that one day I will live with Jesus. Do I have absolute, 100% certainty? Nope. I doubt regularly.