Bill Maher makes the claim at the beginning of the movie that he is only asking questions. This is far from accurate, he tends instead to be preaching his own beliefs on religion and hardly asking a wide range of experts on anything meaningful. While I still enjoy his points and his show, his uninformed preaching did this movie and its viewers a disservice and took away from what could have been an exploration of the mysteries in religion. Instead he asked fundamentalist tourists questions and only broadcast the most absolute of answers. Moreover, he refused to allow anyone other than himself a voice. When a religious follower said one thing he said that they were lying and ultimately wrong. Is this a documentary, am I not smart enough to discern someone telling the truth, thank you for assuming that your viewers are incapable of gauging what is reasonable thought.
The movie also tended to reinforce only popular media views of Christianity, Islam, and Scientology. Not much outside of mainstream media was explored in his movie and this truly is a sad fact for a movie with such great potential. For Maher to allow any progressive religious views to have a voice would mean that his secular fundamentalist message would not have worked. He preaches that there is only absolutism in religion. This could not be further from the truth, and only serves to separate people from other possibilities and ultimately from religious exploration.
What the movie appeared to do, apparent by the laughter in the audience, was entertain. This is a good thing, I suppose, knowing that the public is comfortable laughing about some of the absurdities that exist in religion, portrayed through cartoons and movie clips in the movie. However, I wasn't sure if the audience was laughing about the absurdities themselves or at the people who believed them. Either way I suppose I can't blame the audience for being entertained, that is what the movie seemed to be concerned most with. Entertainment is all that this movie offers, but only enough for one sitting.