Your statement impresses me because you cannot get any closer than that about most religions of this world.
Do you remember that when Jesus was on earth he exposed the religion in his days having hypocrites as leaders? JESUS exposed them and we see the result is that Jesus was killed and we all know that. The bible shows that Jesus views them as what they really are as Jesus defended the truth!
No, Bill Maher is not Jesus but a man looking for some extra cash in what he does best, comedy! The difference is that Jesus had faith is his father GOD in heaven and bill Maher doesn’t believe in the unseen! I understand he is rightly concerned about religions of this world but he should never give up in finding the truth about GOD and start reading the bible chapter-by-chapter daily and then after reading the bible he should draw conclusions about GOD afterwards! I think that in this movie he shows what he got against religion mostly because he is deeply disappointed in them like many intelligent people in this world. The part when he asked in the movie:” Why hasn’t GOD obliterated the devil therefore gets rid of evil in the world? ” This shows that he have questions but he doesn’t read the bible himself. He preferred to ask an actor, lol, funny.
BILL Maher, please read GOD’S word and you will have your questions answer, little child! He is a smart man! But don’t get mistaken the creator of the universe is alive and will do what he needs to do at the proper time as he has done before! (Read the bible)

I’m surprised that I don’t see anyone wondering what does GOD think about religions? How does he view them?
KEEP in mind that religion is one thing and the bible is another. History shows that most religions perform acts that are contrary to the bible, for example The crusaders against the Muslims when they were acting contrary to the bible that says But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you (Luke 6:27-28) and Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse (Romans 12:14) that is Religulous as of ridiculous, even thou they were “Catholics believing in Christ”.
SO this is not the bible’s fault. The bible is right but many people do not correctly apply it in their lives. —
PS. I’m just a bible student.

Keep in mind I have not seen the movie.

As in any modern “documentary” (I use the term loosely) Maher is highlighting/including in his movie only things that support his point of view. There are so many examples above that they’re too many to go into.

People are human (yes, even Christians) and thus imperfect. Why did he interview a “money pastor” but not a reasonable, decent one? Of course there are people out there that will use religion to enrich themselves. I hate that kind of person. At my church the pastors live frugally and extra money went towards building our church, and now that it’s done extra funds are going towards buying the land and construction costs for a second one because the congregation is expanding and is spread between two counties.

One of the problems with people who profess to be Christians is that (and you’re right) they don’t and haven’t read the Bible. It certainly isn’t as easy a read as Harry Potter. :-)

In regards to taking statements out of context from the Bible, what kind of lame argument is THAT? Isn’t one of the worst things you can do in ANY situation is to take some comment or point out of its original context?

I know he would never do this, but the time Maher spends knocking down religion might be better spent REALLY digging deep. I find that the more one studies Christianity and actually learns the history and how things are connected, the more it solidifies one’s faith. Many apparent inconsistencies are shown to not be so when we take into consideration the spoken language, culture and phraseology at the time these things were written.

As to the virgin birth and pagan religions, Christ’s birth was predicted in the Bible 700 years before it happened in Isiah.

And do you know what I find absurd? How an atheist can possibly “know” 100%, beyond the shadow of a doubt that there is no God. As a species we’ve only scratched the surface of our knowledge of the universe. How can anyone possibly say that they know for a fact there is no God when on the whole there is so much we don’t know?

If that’s not “faith” I don’t know what is. :-)

Vic