on the film "Religulous"

LETTER TO BILL MAHER by Lucille Bellucci Your film, “Religulous,” both amused and saddened me, as the years of growing pains have brought me to the same conclusions. Yet, Bill, something happened a few years ago that has sustained me in a private way that has nothing to do with organized religion or its freelancing relatives. My husband's spirit came to me and has been visiting for the last three years. Crackpot, you say? On drink or drugs? Not in the least. I have as many questions as you might: since there are spirits and there is an afterlife, is there an overseeing authority? Is it the entity we call God? Or are these roaming spirits like random energy particulates with no order governing them? My husband's spirit behaves much as his living personality did. He does not advise or warn, like Hamlet’s Ghost. Think of the chaos if spirits did that. But he communicates as best he can, without speaking, by showing me images. If that is random energy I do not know what to make of it anymore. I do know I will be with him but for now I am content to be where I am. This is the closest concept of God that I have achieved in my adult years, and I am comfortable with it. I appreciate the thoughtful (and disillusioned) human being that you must be, and the struggles you must have endured in losing your faith in religion. Perhaps you never practiced your faith, whatever it was, to begin with. From your film, I perceive that your vexations have to do with those rigid proponents of religious denominations whose heads live in splendor and, on the other extreme, hucksters profiting from the name of Jesus. I don’t believe the hucksters deserve all the blame; would they be thriving if people didn’t clamor for snake oil? Other clerics do the best they can to aid, shelter, comfort. I have known missionaries who have made extraordinary sacrifices, people whose purest offerings of human service have been inspired by belief in God. One missionary admitted to me that at least his work overseas was not about dogma. He had seen the hard facts of life for which unyielding church teachings made no concessions and preferred going back to the field where he felt useful. After all this fuss and wing-ding and grand, bloody history, we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we, about God and the Devil, heaven and hell. I can personally attest to one thing, though. There will not be NOTHING out there. Best always, Lucille Bellucci