Rabbi David Wolpe (author of “Why Faith Matters”) writes in today’s Los Angeles Times on Bill Maher’s movie “Religulous:”
I have a fantasy of a counter-movie. I would travel around the world and interview every scientist with a crackpot theory or a quack cure. I'd find researchers who were venal, eccentric, foolish or cruel, throwing in a few responsible scientists for credibility. Call it, say, "Scientifictious."
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Perhaps Maher's greatest misunderstanding of religion is his central indictment: that religion is responsible for the world's violence. It is not. Violence is a product of human nature. Before monotheism, the Assyrians were not kind; the Romans were bloodthirsty beyond the imagination of religious regimes.
When religion became less potent in people's lives after the French Revolution, instead of making the world less violent, it became far more violent: World War I and WWII, communism, Nazism — all shed blood on an unprecedented scale. None were religious regimes or religious wars.
Maher's dislike of religion is not reasoned, however, but visceral. He told Mother Jones magazine about the Jews praying on his plane to Israel: "Even on the plane over, they were, at a certain point, they all stood up in the aisle of the plane davening [praying] … they just looked like crazy people, always bowing their head. It's disconcerting." No doubt had they worn Armani suits and been tapping at a keyboard, Mr. Maher would have found them rational; but seeking transcendence in coach — crazy.
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Maher misunderstands God as a projection of human need. This is a common atheistic trope — your belief is based on psychological deficiencies, while mine is reasoned. In truth, the existence of God is not an antidote to fear but a consequence of wonder. God does not come about through faulty reasoning but through a worshipful and humble orientation of the soul.
Many of us suspect — or yes, believe — that there is more to the world than we know, that there is a mystery at its heart.
Rather than see the movie (you have been warned here), you might want to read one of these three books.