Bill Maher=Pat Robertson

Quote of the day:
“To me, locking oneself into a rigid belief system appears to be the greatest hindrance to humanity’s physical and spiritual evolution. It’s like deciding what the end of the story is after reading only two-thirds of the novel.”
--Michael White

It’s Easter. Happy Easter!

Merrie and I did celebrate the day by getting up very early (for us) and heading out to an 8 o’clock church service. After leading so many worship services myself, it is a blessed relief to participate from the pews.

On religious holidays like this I always get to thinking about how much religious debate and news is dominated by fundamentalists. And there are fundamentalists on both sides of every issue, including whether there is a god or not.

Two fundamentalists who get lots of attention are Pat Robertson and Bill Maher. Robertson seems to enjoy the spotlight so much that he deliberately makes obnoxious assertions about what God wants or is going to do. Either that or he really believes God is sending messages for him to send along to us. Either way, he has a problem.

Bill Maher is another perfect example of a self-righteous fundamentalist. The giveaway is the way he talks about religion on his HBO show with such foul, dripping loathing. You can hear it in the way he says the word “religion”: REEEE-LIH-JOHNNNN, drawn out with equal emphasis on each syllable.

Maher lumps all religious people together and effectively calls them deluded and stupid. Using hugely broad stereotypes is a classic characteristic of a fundamentalist. Maher has occasionally been rebuffed and criticized on his show, often by people whom he’d never expect to be religious. I have to give him credit because, after each of these incidents, he does seem to moderate himself for a while. Until something new sets him off.