Comedy is a great tool, its not going to work for the 'Religulous' out there, but certainly debate with humour with 'moderate Religous' folk is where the real debate/battle is.
I think the point of films like this is yes to preach to the converted, but also to evoke debate/discussion in the mainstream.
People who consider themselves reasonable people, moderate religious, are often the likely people who will consider debating their own beliefs and partaking in thought provoking discussions.
Not to say the fringes of religions are hopeless and lost... But we all know convincing them anything contrary to their views will be very difficult at best.
Thankfully the fringes aren't the majority, films like Religulous hope to remind moderates that they are whether they like it or not, helping such behavior exist and even being apologetic for such people.
Don't underestimate the power of books and films to get people 'soft on religion' to really think about their own belief and even turn to the darkside of atheism. I see a lot of posts on Dawkins forums about people being shunned by their own families for telling them their non belief, some cases pretty extreme.
The courage it takes for those people to do that is no joke, films like this, books like the many published in the last 5 years.. they are making it easier for people such as these to find acceptance and realize they are not the tiny % of people that they might feel if it wasn't for awareness in media, books, etc..
The strategy can't be simple in this debate of idea's, humour works for some, logic works for some, and sometimes mockery evokes a response where nothing else will. If nothing, I don't believe rise of atheism is causing more zealotry, I think the rise of Islam is doing a great job on that by itself, causing fear in Christians/Catholics/Jews, while turning world politics into a battleground of Islam vs the rest of the world.
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