Satire and Religion

            As a very math and science based person with no religious background I often find it hard to understand how religious people around the world can take holy literature as fact. Often I may find myself in a situation where a person with strong religious beliefs confronts me about my beliefs and a debate ensues. I’m often very hesitant to debate on this topic because I don’t have a very broad knowledge of religions other than the surface of Christianity, and when asked for an alternate answer for the creation of life at best I can say it was random. For the most part this is a debate that will probably continue well past our lifetimes and possibly until the end of man kind and seems useless to worry about; to each his own. However there are many practices and beliefs held by religious people that display the purpose of religion in a negative light and continue to make me wonder how anyone can structure there life around a really old book. It would be a mistake to attack religion because of some peoples hypocrisy and stupidity. On the other hand it would be very entertaining to poke fun at these people, and it is. No one does this as well as Monty Python’s film “Life of Brian”, or at least it’s very hard to top.

            The film does an amazing job of poking fun at excessive religiosity and the hypocritical and fanatical aspects of organized religion. Take for example the opening scene of the movie depicting the three wise men on the night they visit baby Jesus. This is a scene that can be seen in almost every town in America driving around for a few minutes a few weeks before Christmas. However this seems to be a strange scene if viewed by standards of modern times. If you were sitting in a stable in the middle of the night with your new born baby and three guys pop up claiming to be wise men with gifts you would be a bit suspicious. Upon asking these men why they came, they respond by telling you they followed a star. By now I would think they were nutcases. The beauty of this scene is that it never says, “There’s no way this happened”, it just merely points out that it’s a very odd situation without crossing any lines.

            Another set of scenes later in the film touches on blind faith...

At one point in the film a small group of people mistake Brian for their Messiah and begin following him, so Brian tries to run away and in the process loses a shoe. The followers are so desperate for signs they perceive it as a sign they should run with only one shoe on. Again my knowledge of what this may parallel in an organized religion is poor, but I know that in certain Masonic rituals an initiate must remove one shoe before entering through guarded doors. God supposedly created humans not shoes, what would he care if you wore one or two shoes. The next day a mob of people gather outside of Brian’s house awaiting their Messiah. Brian proceeds to tell the mob to think for themselves. The mob completely misses the message and just begins repeating everything Brian says like some holy declaration from God. To the mob I would like to offer a saying from one of my good friends; “Don’t talk about it, be about it.”

            The great thing about this film is that you don’t need prior knowledge about religions to enjoy it and can help a diligent viewer avoid making the same hypocritical and ignorant mistakes the Monty Python cast plays out. This is the great part of satire, we all get to laugh and no one gets hurt. Take it from Jonathan Adams a clergy of the Church of St Thomas the Martyr in Newcastle. The film does “not mock Jesus, and [it raises] important issues about the hypocrisy and stupidity that can affect religion.”