Bill Maher: Non-Apathetic Apatheist

The relentless way Bill Maher derides the intelligence of anyone who believes in God is proof positive that Mr. Bill is convinced he’s a genius. Although most liberals exhibit a similar “the dummies need us to think for them” propensity, when it comes to matters of religious faith, Maher elevates the affliction to a whole new level.

And while it’s pure speculation on my part, based on his juvenile behavior, it appears as if Maher is a disgruntled Catholic trying desperately to convince himself God doesn’t exist; so regardless of how bright he perceives himself to be, Maher lacks the insight to realize that he’s revealing something he’d probably prefer the rest of America not to notice.

For someone as mentally deficient as Maher believes I am, even as far back as the first grade I recognized that there was no direct correlation between parochial school and the personhood of God. Yet for all Maher’s clever innuendo and sarcastic banter, it must go deeper than that, because this man apparently isn’t astute enough to separate Catholicism from God.

Maher was raised by an Irish Catholic father and a mother (Julie, nee Berman) that he was unaware was Jewish until he was a teenager (which right there reeks of family dysfunction). Seems somewhere around the age of 13, when hormone-infused Bill, had he been raised a Jew, might have been practicing his Hebrew to prepare for an upcoming Bar Mitzvah, Maher’s Catholic dad realized birth control was a good idea after all.

Based on Maher’s animosity toward all religion and toward Christianity in particular, one would guess Dad’s gripe with Rome might have impacted his son.

Since then, William Jr., whose parental religious roots are firmly implanted in a Judeo-Christian heritage, has made it a career to get back at God. Try as he might to prove otherwise, Maher’s contempt for Christianity could very well be rooted in his father’s reaction to the Roman Catholic Church’s undying commitment to the rhythm method.

Since the day Maher’s Dad decided pull out of the Catholic Church, any aspirations young Maher had of one day being an altar boy were left lying like a crumpled cassock on the parish Sacristy floor.

Instead, Willy and Julie’s son changed course and chose to fashion what started as a family disagreement over church doctrine into a successful career portraying believers in God as neanderthal nut jobs with nary a brain cell nor a lick of sense.

From age 13 on, English major and 2009 Richard Dawkins Atheist Alliance International award recipient Maher has spent loads of time demeaning what he and an English Lit degree have identified as the Church’s unscientific teachings on homosexuality, abortion and birth control.

Over the years the comedian has transformed into a liberal/apatheist icon who lacks apathy only when it comes to pocketing millions of dollars earned mocking a God he relegates to the same category as unicorns, the tooth fairy, and JLo’s long-lost plan to cook dinner for only one man.

Apatheism is defined as a “disinclination to care all that much about one’s own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people’s.” Which means Maher is a pretty lame apatheist, because all he does is focus on religion.

What Maher fails to recognize is that his acerbic comments directed toward God make him look like the proverbial spurned middle-school kid with a crush on the head cheerleader. Who knows, maybe besides the birth control brouhaha, somewhere along the line an overbearing nun denied the future comedian a bathroom pass and he never recovered.

What we do know is that Maher behaves like a confused, madly-in-unrequited-love teenager who spends all his energy defacing God’s locker and calling God and His people floozies as payback for some imagined hurt.

Now, almost 50 years later, one would think that for someone who spends his life pointing out the hypocrisy of organized religion and who believes that when it comes to God, “doubt is the only appropriate response for human beings,” Maher would recognize that, in a roundabout way, making a living off something you don’t believe in is similar to attending Mass while practicing off-beat forms of birth control.

So, with that in mind, when Maher mocks Christians, saying “Who needs government when you have Jesus,” or when he produces and stars in a irreverent movie like “Religulous,” his contempt and derision expose a man who, although he sees himself as brilliant, isn’t quite smart enough to recognize the hypocrisy, not to mention the irony, of making a career out of preaching that one person shouldn’t push their religious beliefs on anybody else.