DENNIS: From "Clerks" to "Chasing Amy," tonight's guest is a director who has become something of an icon himself among fans of independent film. His latest release, "Dogma" explores the complex relationship between God, humans, and back-end participation. And by the way, "Dogma" spelled backwards is "Godma." Please welcome Kevin Smith, ladies and gentlemen.

[Cheers and applause as Kevin walks onstage. After both are seated:]

DENNIS: Now, you know, I've done 146 of these and they tell me you're our most requested guest we've ever had on our website.

KEVIN: That's just fuckin' sad, isn't it? Who's watching TV… who's watching HBO that likes Kevin Smith on the Internet? That was a nice reaction, though.

DENNIS: Yeah, glad to see you can take a compliment, Smitty.

KEVIN: Yeah.

DENNIS: That's Catholic.

KEVIN: It is; it's very kinda –

DENNIS: Are you still a practicing Catholic or…? I bailed out. I was brought up Catholic, but it got a little weird.

KEVIN: No, I still go. It's weird, but I still go.

DENNIS: Did the nuns show you… the nuns used to show us slideshows of Hell. Remember that?

KEVIN: (Laughing) I didn't have one of those.

DENNIS: I remember this nun looked at me one day – and even as a young boy, I was always skeptical about the getup, you know, I'd think "Wow, that's a weird little outfit you've put together there" – and she said there was a boy who wanted to make his first communion and they told him, "You're too young, you have to have your second teeth grown in," and he loved God so much that he went home and got a hammer out of his dad's workbench and hammered out all his baby teeth so his big teeth could come in. And she said that was like… you know, she said it, like, was some degree of how much he liked god, and I thought, "This is a fucked up religion."

KEVIN: Right, yeah.

DENNIS: That never drove you away?

KEVIN: No, no, I didn't have any hammering out of the teeth nuns, so I… it was okay, I mean –

DENNIS: Sister Mary Marathon Man.

KEVIN: Yeah. I didn't…

[Both laugh.]

KEVIN: Is it safe? Yeah, I guess it's safe. I didn't really have any bad experiences.

DENNIS: What about masturbation?

KEVIN: Well, I mean there was –

DENNIS: They were bad, they didn't dig masturbation.

KEVIN: There was a lot of that going on, but no nuns were present.

DENNIS: I remember… (Laughs.) That's when I knew I had to get off, 'cause if jerking off is a sin, I've got my own wing at Cooper's Town, my friend.

KEVIN: Usually that's how you do know when to get off.

DENNIS: What does it do for you now in your latter-day life, this Catholic belief… I believe in God, I should tell you that, but the Catholic part of it has dropped away –

KEVIN: As do I. See, I'm certainly not the poster child for Catholicism, like I got married almost a year ago, and we had a baby about four months later, so, you know, you do the math. But –

DENNIS: Immaculate conception.

KEVIN: Exactly. I was like, "It wasn't me; it was God? Well, that's all right." But she looks like Chris Rock.

[Dennis laughs.]

KEVIN: Chris Rock is in the movie…

DENNIS: I know. So you had maybe four months to go, and has it enforced your faith in God, or –

KEVIN: Well, no, no, but I… I've… I mean I've always been a very… a big, firm believer in God, like there's never really been a moment of doubt about that. I've definitely had moments of doubt about the religion and gone so far astray as to go out and seek out another religion. And I've tried out a few; I went to the Pentecostal… did you ever check out the Pentecostals?

DENNIS: No. What is… that's the handling snakes and stuff?

KEVIN: No, they didn't do any of that, 'cause this is in the Jersey suburbs, and we don't even have snakes.

DENNIS: Oh. So they handle electric snakes.

KEVIN: (Laughs.) Exactly. The Roto-Rooter snakes and what not. But it was just kind of a little different than Catholicism, but it was still a little far-flung, like there was a girl, I remember… they were testifying and this girl got up and she was about 14 and she's just like, "I lost Christ when I was 9, and now I've found him again and I just want to tell you he's better than any drug, any sex, any booze…" And I was kind of chuckling in the back of the church, going like… "Come on. Then you've never had sex, you know." It's like, I love Christ as much as the next guy, but, you know, church or fucking?

[Dennis laughs.]

KEVIN: I've been to mass. I've been to mass a lot.

DENNIS: Yeah, but you don't go to mass twice.

KEVIN: No, no. And I'd certainly, like, if I was gonna even them up, like I'd like to fuck as much as I've been to church in my life; there's a ways to go.

DENNIS: Yeah, exactly. What other ones have you dabbled in? Pentecostal, what else?

KEVIN: I checked out the Pentecostals; I went to a faith that was called the… it escapes me, it's so weird. But they were –

DENNIS: What were the tenets of it?

KEVIN: Well, what I was looking for was I was looking for a religion that didn't say, like, this is the Bible and the Bible's the word of God and we must believe everything that's written in the Bible, because my feeling about the Bible is… great book, inspirational book, but… a book. You know, it certainly doesn't feel like the word of God to me. It feels like the words of a bunch of guys sitting around in a hotel room going like "This will keep 'em in line."

[Dennis laughs.]

KEVIN: "What was that thing? No adultery? That'll keep somebody from fucking my wife. That's good."

DENNIS: (Referring to the audience.) Well, I think you've got a flock here.

KEVIN: I know. I'll be starting my own religion after the show.

DENNIS: So you went to this one and what did they –

KEVIN: So I went to this one and I was like… it was really inspirational. You get in there and you felt the presence in the room and they held it in like a warehouse. It was like a rave of some sort, but there were no poppers, no amyl nitrate, but a lot of spirit. And I was like, "This is pretty good." There was no condemnation, they didn't come after you and tell you you were sinning and what not, but I –

DENNIS: So you liked the vibe?

KEVIN: I liked it a lot, and then I read their pamphlet one day; their dogma, what they're about, and the first line is like "We believe the Bible is the word of God." And I was like, "Jesus Christ, is there any faith that doesn't believe the Bible is the word of God? Can I find a faith that doesn't really adhere to that?"

DENNIS: Well, when you are questioning God, to use His name in vain is always a good first step.

KEVIN: Yeah, yeah. But that's the key. People will tell you all sorts of things, like "You're sinning because of this, you're sinning because of that," and I get it a lot. I get a lot of people going like "You're a Christian?" or more specifically, "You're a Catholic? I've seen your movies, they curse a lot." I'm like, "And?" I mean, I don't see anything in the Bible that about thou shalt not, you know, say "fuck" an awful lot.

DENNIS: That's not part of the exchange to you? That God sits up there –

KEVIN: No, I don't think God cares.

DENNIS: Right.

KEVIN: It's like "The Smith kid's talking dirty? I've got more problems over here."

DENNIS: Okay, having said that, then, and so many people tune into those… the little things and say that – yeah, I believe He could care less about the trivialities, too. What does the absence of God do to what appears sometimes to be an essentially godless world? I mean, you read these stories about them pulling retarded children out of places in Chechnya and, you know, beating them, and you think, my God, where –

KEVIN: Way to bring the show down.

DENNIS: Well, I'm just saying, you know, sometimes you – I believe in God and sometimes I go "Jesus Christ, is there really… how does this go on?" What happens without a god in this universe?

KEVIN: I think without God, you've got a bunch of people who aren't the people that you hear about a lot… like, you always hear about the negative about religion or about faith or about belief in God and the people who are kind of put on display as the spokesmen of God are the people that are like, "You know what… it's a sin and it's morally wrong for this dude to be chuggin' that dude's dick, and I don't want any part of that –"

DENNIS: Chuggin'?

KEVIN: Chuggin'.

[Dennis high fives Kevin.]

DENNIS: I kind of like that. Now see, I believe in a god that says "Hey! Smitty just had a great second word for blowjob down there."

KEVIN: I hope so. 'Cause I made "Dogma."

DENNIS: He's waiting on you, brother.

KEVIN: He is.

DENNIS: It's like the ultimate "Siskel & Ebert" show. You go up there, He's just like this… [Thumbs down sign.] …you're fucked.

KEVIN: You're going straight to hell. Say hello to Eisner while you're there.

DENNIS: What's the shot? I don't even understand the shot with Eisner.

KEVIN: I just had some problems with ABC…

DENNIS: Aah, fuck that.

KEVIN: Yeah, we're on to God. But most of the time, you see the people up front who are kind of… I don't know, they just don't do much. They're not the great spokesmen, they're not the people you want on your team saying things about you because they drive people away from the faith. And that's what people think about when they talk about religion in this country, because it's always the people on TV, people that you're looking at like "God, this guy's crazy. I don't want to be any part of a religion that's so exclusionary as this or a god that wants nothing to do with the bungled and the botched." I mean, I've read the Bible and Christ hung out with the bungled and the botched. It wasn't the piouses… He was hanging out with hookers and tax collectors which I guess was as bad as being a hooker at the time.

KEVIN and DENNIS: (Simultaneously.) Still is.

KEVIN: …And the lepers, just the really ruined people, and that's who religion… and that's who, really, God is for, to me. The people who need that, people who turn on the news and see some horrible shit about retarded kids getting killed in Chechnya and they're just like, "there has to be sense to this somewhere." And they need God in their lives. Not only people who are watching shit on TV, but people who are dealing with shit in their daily lives, who are just like, "God, it's so horrible, I was born into poverty and it's not getting much better and I'm continually getting fucked by The Man and I just need to believe that after this there's some kind of reward."

DENNIS: Some cosmic payoff.

KEVIN: Yeah, let it pay off somewhere, 'cause it's certainly not paying off here.

DENNIS: I get my payoff when I have an erudite guest come on, 'cause, believe me, sometimes it's pulling teeth out here, and you've obviously thought it out. Thanks for coming on. Kevin Smith, ladies and gentlemen.