Religulous

This is it.

I'm standing on the very spot

where many Christians believe the world will come to an end.

It's called Megiddo.

And it's the place that the Book of Revelation says

Jesus Christ will come down to

to end the world and save the people who believe in him.

Now when Revelations was written,

only God had the capacity to end the world,

but now man does too, because unfortunately,

before man figured out how to be rational

or peaceful, he figured out nuclear weapons

and how to pollute on a catastrophic scale.

And if it's one thing I hate more than prophecy,

it's self-fulfilling prophecy.

Sometimes in your search for happiness,

you ponder the meaning of your life.

Who am I? How did I come to be?

Death, and then what?

I certainly honestly believe

religion is detrimental

to the progress of humanity.

You know, it's just selling an invisible product.

It's too easy.

These questions about what happens when you die,

they so freak people out

that they will just make up any story

and cling to it.

You know, things that they know

can't be true, people who are otherwise

so rational about everything else,

and then they believe that

on Sunday they're drinking the blood

of a 2,000-year-old God.

I can't... that's a dissonance in my head.

I can't... I have to find out.

I just have to find out. I have to try.

This is the Mount of Olives. This is Jesus's footprints.

We're here freezing our ass off.

Is there anybody on the stage that

- does not believe in evolution? - Yeah.

Hurry hurry hurry.

- I like my hat. - You look good too.

Welcome to Bible Country!

"Birthplace of the Virgin Mary"?

I believe that God wants everybody to be free.

That's what I believe,

and that's one part of my foreign policy.

Bill, watch out.

Boy, do I feel cheap.

I want to thank God for just blessing me so much.

Music has been a blessing from God.

Thank you, Jesus!

You need a Holy Ghost enema right up your rear end!

The archives are there on the fifth floor where you see the curtains.

Yeah, put that away now. Put that away.

If you look at my stand-up

from like the '80s... that era...

early '90s,

I talked about religion, but I'm not ever questioning God.

I'm just making fun about things

in the religion... circumcision.

Circumcision... I mean, I would've loved

to have been there for the first people to hear about this.

We're used to it now, but you know, I mean,

I'm sure when Moses came down with this idea,

there had to be one guy going,

"Let me get this straight."

It was just a gentle poking fun at Him.

It's almost like I'm roasting Him.

My mother is Jewish and my father is Catholic. That is the truth.

I was raised Catholic formally,

although I must say the Jewish mind comes out

even in the Catholic system. I'll give you an example.

We used to go into confession

and I would bring a lawyer in with me.

You know.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

I think you know Mr. Cohen.

So let me get out some pictures.

There's me.

We weren't brought up Jewish.

I didn't even know we had that side,

so it was very Catholic.

We went to church every Sunday,

but I wouldn't take off the gun

and really when I think back,

it wasn't relevant to my life.

Superman was relevant and baseball.

We had this family

where one person was Jewish

and the other three were Catholic.

Now there it says "A Sunday noon, fall '66,"

so we must've just gotten back from church,

'cause I'm in a red suit

and you're choking the dog.

And I guess we got home from church and took a picture with you.

It never occurred to me to say,

"Why didn't you go to church?"

Mom...

what church do we belong to?

I don't remember this ever coming up.

Of course you didn't go to church with us.

No, we never had a family discussion about it, never.

We never had a family discussion about that.

Every family is dysfunctional.

So you thought even this, which wasn't your religion,

was better than no religion.

Well, even this only told you good things...

I thought.

But it's just so shamelessly invented as they go along.

- We can say that now. - Was anyone...

When we quit the church, I was 13,

and I was of course thrilled, but not for any ideological reason.

I was just thrilled 'cause I hated church.

It scared me. It was boring.

I had to get up on Sunday.

I was 13.

I would've worshiped anything that could've allowed me

to masturbate even more than I was masturbating

or get a girl. That god I would have definitely worshipped.

Why do you remember

Dad stopped going to church?

We used birth control,

and the church frowned on birth control.

That was the biggest sin

- you could ever commit. - Right, that would...

I think that was possibly... he never said it to me.

And he never went back. None of us ever did.

So now that we don't believe,

where did...

Nobody said we don't believe.

We don't believe in Catholicism.

Right, but what do we believe in now?

Come on. You're my mother, instruct me.

I don't know the answer to that.

That's my answer.

We'll take some back roads to see

- some interesting stuff out here. - Take some back roads.

We are heading toward Raleigh, right?

Oh, yeah, man, can't you feel it?

Do I stand up here? So as I was going here,

I just jotted down a few questions that came to my mind.

Are you ever bothered by many things

that are in Christianity that are not in the Bible?

Like original sin.

Immaculate conception.

The virgin birth is only in two of the Gospels... popes.

Are you worried that these things came not from the founders,

the people that wrote this book, but from...

and this is indisputable... but from men,

from human beings who came after?

And when I say men, I mean people with penises.

If you wanna go back to scientific proof,

I think it was determined the shroud or whatever that was

went around a while back... I didn't get involved.

- Shroud of Turin? - They took blood samples from it,

and it was female blood with a male figure.

Okay, the only possible way that could happen was

that the Holy Ghost impregnated Mary

because it would've been female blood

because it would've been the only blood flowing through her.

- It's a faith thing. - But why is faith good?

Why is believing something without evidence good?

I don't like the way this thing's going.

I don't know what this documentary's supposed to be,

but I don't like where you're going.

You start disputing my God,

and you got a problem. I don't know what you...

I'm outta here. You do what you wanna do, but I'm outta here.

- I'm just asking questions. - Okay, no problem.

When I've seen what I've seen, I know there's a God.

You can't change my mind. Nobody can change my mind.

I walked for 30 years as a Satanist priest.

From the time I grew up, I was in Satanism.

For the last six years, that I was into Satanism,

I was a Satanist priest, okay?

- Real Satanism? - Yes, real Satanism.

Being addicted to drugs, and running prostitutes

and the women and everything that goes with that.

I walked around with rolls of money in my pocket.

I gave all that up when I got saved.

When the guy said, "Yeah, I used to do drugs.

I used to have women," and I'm thinking,

- "And your problem was?" - Right.

Let me ask you this question:

What if we're right and you're wrong?

We gonna make it and you ain't.

If you're being good just to save your ass

just because, "Ooh, they might be right

and I just want to double down here

and make sure that when I get up to the pearly gates,

that St. Peter doesn't say to me,

'Sorry, asshole, you had the wrong religion.

Enjoy Hell, buh-bye."'

That's not a good reason, and you know that.

Come on, believe in Jesus. What do you have to lose?

It's like the lotto.

You can't get saved if you don't play.

Yeah, you could be right. I don't think it's very likely,