Looking for Work

I want a job like this. Bill Maher, of Politically Incorrect fame, was on Scarborough Country last night, and apparently had some choice things to say about Christianity. For example,

"I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder."

I don't want to misquote him, but I don't know what context a statement like that can be placed in that would make it anything less than astonishingly contemptuous. I want to know how people get major media jobs where they make all kinds of money hurling derogatory and insulting comments at huge numbers of ordinary people.

Let's consider the impact of this statement, that faith is a neurological disorder. Apparently anyone who has any faith is judged by Bill Maher to be insane. Who would he be speaking of, as people who have faith, and for the sake of argument, we'll limit it to Christianity. Abraham Lincoln? G.K. Chesterton? C.S. Lewis? George Washington? Isaac Newton? Blaise Pascal? C. Everett Koop? Michael Faraday? Handel? Bach? Rembrandt? T.S. Eliot?

Now that is a a very short list. But the question is, what makes Bill Maher qualified to go on national television and say that all people of faith are deranged and sit in judgment on the intellectual capacities of those on the list above, some of whom were instrumental in the development of modern science? And why should anyone listen to him compare the faith of these individuals with that of those who would fly airplanes into buildings to murder civilians? Certainly not all people of faith, any faith, are equally balanced and rational. But Maher says we are all brain damaged.

Apparently, Maher wants to blame it all on childhood training, suggesting that if we didn't teach Bible stories to our children our kids would all be much more intelligent and enlightened atheists.

"Do you think if it was the fairy tale about a man who lived inside of a whale and it was religion that Jack built a beanstalk today, you would know the difference? Why do you believe in one fairy tale and not the other? Just because adults told you it was true and they scared you into believing it, at pain of death, at pain of burning in hell."

His ignorance of Christianity is staggering. Fairy tales have a place in the teaching of general ideas about morality or human values, both good and bad, but that does not make all Bible stories fairy tales. Jesus told many stories or parables that any reader of the gospels intuitively knows are intended to be only stories to teach a singular truth. But these are easily distinguished from those events recorded in the Old and New Testament that are intended to be more than mere stories, but actual events in which God interacted with the natural world.

There are Bible stories that are clearly portrayed as history. These events are recorded by those who claim to be eyewitnesses, they are documented in written records, they refer to other verifiable historical events, places and people for context. In short, what we are presented with in many Biblical stories are unusual events which most people would not be inclined to believe except for the fact that they are portrayed as historical events by people who are rational enough to know the difference.

We can verify that Moses lived and breathed and led the Israelites out of Egypt. We can verify that there was a city named Nineveh, and yes, on occasion, men have been swallowed by sea creatures and survived. We can verify that Jesus walked and talked in Palestine, that he was crucified by the Roman authorities. It is a matter of public record that twelve men who followed Jesus went to horrible deaths proclaiming that Christ had in fact risen from the dead. It is absolutely certain that this belief in the resurrection of Christ spawned a movement that overtook much of the known world by the second century and many Christians continued to prefer death to renouncing their faith.

I suppose if Maher wants to call them all disordered, that is his right. I just want to know who is dumb enough to pay him for it. I'd like a job where I can make lots of money saying stupid and ignorant things.