Bill Maher and "Religionless"

Anlee and I recently watched Bill Maher's documentary on religion, "Religionless".  Interesting work.  If you're not familiar with it, it is an attempt by Maher to show that all religion is crazy nonsense.  He doesn't seem to be a proponent of atheism; rather, he states that the best and most humble position on the big questions of life is to simply say, "I don't know."  So I guess he's an agnostic.  While agnostics traditionally view the existence of a deity as unknown or unknowable and are comfortable with more uncertainty and unanswered questions than both theists and atheists, Maher sure seems certain that all religions are nonsense.

Maher certainly has a knack for finding the wackiest people to represent each of the religions that he looked into.  As a Christian, I rolled my eyes with most of the people or businesses that he chose to to speak for Christianity.  There were a couple of positive exceptions, namely the scientist Francis Collins.  However, it seemed pretty obvious that Maher's conversation with Collins was significantly edited to support Maher's thesis.  It's amazing how easy it is to support your case with the power of editing. 

We must admit that there are some wacky people out there and that some of them identify with Christianity or other religions.  Do we judge the validity of the religion by the silly things that some of its adherents do or say?  Do we judge the non-religious viewpoint by the equally silly things that some of its adherents do or say?  I think you find silly people wherever you are.  You might be one of them!  

I guess the other thing I feel must be admitted is that all religions include aspects, beliefs or practices that seem crazy to non-adherents.  A dominating belief today is that this universe is a completely natural entity, explainable by science, with no supernatural elements.  If this is one's assumption, of course any belief system that contains a God or miracles is going to seem a little crazy.  The big question is, is there a supernatural element to this world or not?  I think the answer is a resounding yes, but each of us have to answer this question for ourselves.

I just don't think you get something as orderly and intricate as the galaxies, as the human body, by purely natural means.  If you were to walk into your bathroom and all the toilet paper had been unrolled and each individual sheet had been folded into a little decorative swan, you would not think, "Oh, look what nature did all by itself over a long period of time."  You would obviously think someone had invaded your bathroom and played a weird trick on you.  I look at the world and I think, Somebody must have had a hand in this.  This can't just have happened.

I found this video interesting-Bill Maher led a promiscuous, cocaine dealing atheist to Christ.