I saw Religulous when it first came out, and while I enjoyed Bill Maher’s humorous take on religion, there was one section of the movie that told me something I did not know.

It begins with Maher saying that when he went to church as a child, there were “moments of sheer terror” at the thought of burning in the eternal fire of Hell.  Following this, the scene changes, and we find Maher announcing that he is in the Vatican.  But not for long.  Suddenly, the camera is apparently pushed down, filming the floor, while the microphone picks up sounds of scuffling.  The next we see of him, he is standing in front of the Vatican.  He says he wanted to interview the Pope, but he would have settled for a cardinal, a monsignor, or even the flying nun. No such luck.  Instead, they just threw him out.

But then a priest does turn up, Father Reginald Foster.  In the course of their conversation, Foster makes reference to all the books he has read by atheists who say religion is stupid.

“You know what’s going to happen to them,” Maher replies.  “They’re going to be roasting in Hell.”

“Come on, roasting,” Foster replies.  “That’s the old Catholic thing.”

“That’s what they taught me,” Maher says, somewhat perplexed by this.

“Yeah, I know,” Foster says, “that Hell business.”

“Well, come on,” Maher persists, “the standard doctrine that I was taught as a kid.”

“Yeah, that’s all gone,” Foster says dismissively.  “That’s all finished.”

“But that’s not fair,” Maher replies. 

“Yeah,” Foster concludes, giving the whole business a raspberry.

After priests frightened Maher with Hell when he was a child, they now say, “Never mind,” and have a laugh at his expense for having ever believed such foolishness.

I was as perplexed as Maher.  No Hell?   Somebody should have told me!

I have a friend who is a Catholic.  She said she once asked a priest about a hypothetical situation: A man and woman are truly in love with each other and plan on getting married, but one Saturday night they get carried away and have sex.  Filled with guilt, they decide to go to confession on Sunday, after which they will get married so as to preclude the possibility of lapsing into sin once more.  However, on the way home they are involved in an automobile accident and both are killed.

“What would happen to them?” she asked.

The priest replied, “They would go to Hell.”

After I saw Religulous, I called her up to tell her that her priest had apparently not received the word.

Recently, I happened to be reading an excerpt from Against All Gods, by A.C. Grayling, who discusses the phrase “fundamentalist atheist.”

Christians among other things mean by “fundamentalist atheists” those who would deny people the comforts of faith….  Yet in its concessive, modest, palliative modern form Christianity is a recent and highly modified version of what, for most of its history, has been an often violent and always oppressive ideology….  Nowadays, by contrast, Christianity specializes in soft-focus mood music; its threats of hell, its demand for poverty and chastity, its doctrine that only the few will be saved and the many damned, have been shed, replaced by strummed guitars and saccharine smiles.

In other words, by taking what Jesus had to say about Hell seriously, the fundamentalist atheist is spoiling everyone’s good mood.

Grayling goes on to mention that the Church of England abolished Hell by an Act of Synod in the 1920s.  Instead, those who do not accept Christ as their savior are merely separated from God.  Apparently, the Catholic Church came to a similar conclusion in 1992.  And so it is that the Anglican and Catholic Churches no longer have a Hell.  All they have now is a Heck.

Needless to say, a lot of Christians still believe in a real Hell, a place where those without faith will literally burn in the eternal fire.  Early in the movie Religulous, Maher, who is, of course, a fundamentalist atheist, passes by a billboard which reads, in all caps, “HELL IS REAL.”

Maher’s mother was Jewish, but his father was Catholic, and he was raised as such.  When talking about religion, he also includes Islam.  So, all three Abrahamic religions are examined, along with Mormonism and Scientology.  He says that he used to make jokes about religion as a standup comic, but his quest now is more fundamental, so to speak.  He wants to understand how otherwise rational people, from a fear of death, can cling to a belief that “they know can’t be true.”

When Maher is talking to the kind of people that believe in Hell, they are usually also the ones that are fundamentalists in the ordinary sense of the word.  As a result, Maher can question them about such things as the story of Adam and Eve.  But given the fact that the Anglican and Catholic Churches no longer believe in Hell, it is not surprising that they don’t believe in a lot of other stuff in the Bible too, so that a fundamentalist atheist like Maher has less material to work with.

However, as Grayling points out, the mean-spirited, fundamentalist atheist can still cause discomfort by going on about “the demand for poverty and chastity,” by noting that in Matthew 19, Jesus says that we should sell all our worldly possessions and give the proceeds to the poor.

While talking to Father Foster, Maher points to the Vatican, saying:  “When you look at a building like that, a giant palace, does it seem at odds with the message of the founder?”

Foster, in his usual joking manner, admits that it does bother him, and that he wouldn’t live there if he were boss.

With only a little prompting from Maher, Foster goes on to say that a lot of stuff Christians believe are just “nice stories,” and people believe them or not as they want.  “Talk about Cafeteria Catholics!” he says, followed by another raspberry.

Maher asks, “So how do you convince people of what’s the true faith?”

“You don’t,” Foster says, as he sums it all up.  “Forget it.  You just have to live and die with their stupid ideas.”

And one of their “stupid ideas,” of course, is their belief in Hell.

So, for that “hypothetical” couple my friend was worried about, Religulous brings them good tidings of great joy.  They might end up being separated from God, but at least they will have each other.