TORONTO -- During recent interviews at the Toronto International Film Festival, both comedian Bill Maher and director Larry Charles pitched their upcoming movie, Religulous, as a Saturday night entertainment alternative to mainstream movies like The Dark Knight and Tropic Thunder.
But make no mistake. Their film, which opens next Friday in Winnipeg, is nothing less than a non-believer's gauntlet thrown in the face of organized religion.
Religulous (the title is an incendiary mash-up of the words "religious" and "ridiculous") follows Maher around the globe on a tour of world religions with emphasis on the three major western religions: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
The structure of the film resembles Charles's last movie, Borat, except Maher, the host of the HBO series Real Time, never disguises his subversive intent behind a moustache and a funny accent. Maher visits a creationist museum, a Christian theme park in Florida (complete with a gruesome recreation of the crucifixion that feels uncomfortably like Passion of the Christ on Ice), a Muslim rapper in London, and an Israeli supplier of automatic devices that effectively circumvent the forbidden activities of the Jewish Sabbath.
This is not mere impertinence of the kind one might expect to see on The Simpsons, wherein Homer once referred to God as "my favourite fictional character."
In one debate with a former Jew for Jesus named Steve Berg, Maher likens belief in God to belief in Santa Claus. Berg tells him: "We don't believe in Santa Claus."
"Of course not," Maher responds. "That's one man flying all around the world and dropping presents down a chimney. One man hearing everybody murmur at him at the same time, that, I get."
Maher's mother was Jewish but he was raised Catholic, spawning a joke in his early comedy routine about showing up in the confessional with his lawyer, Mr. Cohen.
The Brooklyn-born Charles, 52, says he was raised by secular Jews but went to Hebrew school "because my parents wanted me to get bar mitzvahed.
"And these metaphysical and theological questions really provoked me," Charles says. "But when I asked the questions of the rabbis, it's like what you hear about Catholic school with the nuns. I used to get slapped or thrown out of school or whatever.
"All my inquiries were constantly being thwarted. But I still got into it," he says. "I came home to my parents and said, 'You know, I think I want to be a rabbi.' And they said, 'Get bar mitzvahed, get the presents and get out.'"
Charles ultimately made a name for himself as a writer, producer and director on TV shows that included Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Entourage.
In advance of the release of Religulous, Charles is defiant about the film's in-your-face challenge to religious dogma.
"We've had 2,000 years of one point of view on this," he says. "You've been inundated with the pro-religious point of view, to the point where you feel somewhat guilty and reticent about expressing an anti- point of view.
"Here's one little movie preaching the other way, pushing in the other direction," he says. "It's really a modest thing."
Maher, also 52, says that while non-believers make up a large and potentially potent minority of Americans, their very absence of belief works against the community-building strength of organized religion. To that end, the film is intended as a rallying cry to the non-believer "to not feel so intimidated.
"In America, there's 535 members of Congress and not one is a rationalist, and that's not really accurate representation for the tens of millions of people who believe like I do," Maher says.
"I want people to stand up and not be ashamed to say, 'Yes, we're not the crazy ones. The people who believe in the talking snake, they're the crazy ones. Not us.'"
On the reason for making the film:
Charles: "All three major western religions have an end-game strategy, an apocalyptic scenario, they all believe it's the fulfilment of God's desires for humans to end the world and because of that there's no motivation to fix things the way they are. In fact, there's a motivation to destroy things because that is the prophecy.
"We're saying, the end of the world is a real thing. The myths that lead us to the end of the world are leading to this reality, ironically enough."
"We're not saying that there are people who are religious who aren't kind and compassionate and tolerant. We're saying these people have been reduced to a minority and the dominant religious discourse now is a violent one -- it's religion as a weapon against someone else's religion."
On the current state of separation of church and state in the U.S.
Charles: "You can't get elected in the States anymore without professing your faith, so you're a pariah in American society if you're someone who questions these basic foundations of belief."
Maher: "We have retrogressed. That is not progress. That is going in the opposite direction from a country that was founded very specifically on the idea of a separation of church and state.
"The founding fathers were very, very clear about that, and they were not religious, and they were mostly not Christian. They were deists -- was their general belief.
"Western Europe has chucked religion out the window and you saw what happened there. Their civilization has collapsed. Oh, no, that's right, it didn't. Western Europe is a good example of what happens when religion goes the way of high-button shoes: Nothing. Nothing bad at all."
On Sarah Palin, an alleged creationist, being nominated as the Republican vice-presidential candidate:
Maher: "She is scary. I do not ever make a habit of giving money to politicians, but when I saw her make that speech (at the Republican national convention), I ran to my chequebook and sent money to Barack Obama. I'll send whatever I have to keep this snarling bitch out of the White House.
"When I saw her get the nomination, as a citizen, I was not happy, but I said, selfishly, 'This is not going to be bad for my little movie.'"
Religulous opens in Winnipeg next Friday, Oct. 3.
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