In a Nutshell

Plot

Straight as an Arrow

Twisty

Sound Quality

Easy to Hear

Incomprehensible

Who's That?

Few Main Characters

Lots

Naughty Words

Mild

Foul

Naked people

None

Lots

Violence

Tame

Bloody

It’s not everyone who can take a taboo subject like people’s religious beliefs and turn it into a comedy, but that’s what Bill Maher has done with “Religulous.”

Given his background as a political humorist, however, it should come as no surprise that what has been generally marketed as a documentary should emerge overall as a movie that produces more laughs than serious answers.

Maher travels the world to try to persuade followers and leaders to explain in interviews what it is that makes Christians, Jews, Muslims, Mormons and Scientologists so certain that their beliefs are true.

The results are often embarrassing for those being questioned, in the same way that “Borat” left its own trail of chagrin and discomfort. Given that Larry Charles directed both movies, that, too, should not come as a surprise.

What bothers Maher, he says in a conversation with Senator Mark Pryor, Democrat of Arkansas and a fervent evangelist, is that someone who looks forward to the end of the world and believes in a talking snake in a garden should be helping to run the country.

Pryor’s response is an awkward smile and, “You don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.”

If God is all-powerful, Maher asks a Jesus impersonator at a Christian theme park in Florida, why “doesn’t he obliterate the Devil and therefore get rid of evil in the world?” Assured that “He will,” Maher wants to know, “What’s he waiting for?”

Overall, Maher is making the case that there should be room for doubt, not simply disbelief, citing a survey that he says puts religious skeptics at 16 percent of the U.S. population. His other point is that he sees religions as a collection of myths — a man living in a fish for three days is a particularly hard pill for him to swallow — that have poisoned people’s minds and led to wars and destruction.

Not everyone, of course, will agree with that view. Some will be outraged; others will see that challenges to blind faith can produce humor.

Brought up by a Jewish mother and a Roman Catholic father, he attended church every Sunday with his father and sister until the age of 13, which is also when he belatedly learned he was half-Jewish.

Maher’s technique is to ask people who profess an unwavering belief in God, and a strict adherence to only their religion, simple questions that produce either stumbling, bumbling answers, in a Palinesque-Couric kind of way, or bemused silence.

Or total nonsense.

The prize for sheer wackiness should go to José Luis de Jesús Miranda, a smiling Florida evangelist who firmly maintains that he is the second coming of Christ, and no, not because they share the same name.

Close behind would be the Rev. Jeremiah Cummings, formerly of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, who instructs his congregation to buy his DVDs as he stands before them decked out in a very expensive suit, shoes made from lizard skins and gold rings and bracelets.

Though clearly a man of means, he denies taking a salary from the church, prompting Maher to interject: “You take it right out of their pockets!”

Christianity does come in for most of Maher’s humorous exposure, but Judaism and the others are not left out.

An Israeli businessman, for instance, is seen working at coming up with devices that will skirt the laws that apply to the Sabbath, including using electricity.

Two gay Muslim activists are told, “That is a very rare job description,” adding, “You guys have big ones.”