The Religious Fanaticism of Bill Maher by David Cohen.
I saw a clip the other day of Bill Maher casually referring to Republicans as “a**holes.” That’s hardly news, and is in fact typical of the discourse-poisoning invective that caused Maher to be widely blamed by the mainstream media for the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. (Or maybe they didn’t blame him; I forget.) But when I pondered what causes Maher to be so contemptuously dismissive of a plurality of his fellow Americans, an unlikely suspect emerged: Maher’s religious beliefs.
Now ostensibly, Maher has no religious beliefs. He is a self-described apatheist, which means that he follows no religion and is disinterested in the existence or non-existence of a higher being. That is a personal choice that I will not criticize. But Maher’s apatheism has not stopped him from behaving like the religious fanatics that he so despises.
Maher embodies the worst traits that he ascribes to people of faith: He holds his left-wing views not with mere passion, which I could respect, but with downright certitude (if I may attempt to reclaim a word forever made icky by Anthony Weiner). He is therefore completely intolerant of those whose views differ from his own.
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