The President of Mundelein Seminary recently stated that outspoken atheist talk show host Bill Maher does not understand the Bible or true Christian faith.
Father Robert Barron wrote on Catholic News Agency, "I don't know what possesses me to watch 'Real Time With Bill Maher,' for Maher is, without a doubt, the most annoying anti-religionist on the scene today. Though his show is purportedly about politics, it almost invariably includes some attack on religion, especially Christianity."
Barron, who also founded Word on Fire ministry, made his statements to the multiple anti-Christian rants Maher has made on his HBO program, "Real Time with Bill Maher." .
On a recent episode of the show, Maher called God a "psychotic mass murderer" who "drowns babies" as seen with the flood of Noah.
"What kind of tyrant punishes everyone just to get back at the few he's mad at? I mean, besides Chris Christie," said Maher.
"You know, conservatives are always going on about how Americans are losing their values and their morality, well maybe it's because you worship a guy who drowns babies."
Earlier this month, the talk show host asked Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed why Jesus had to come down to Earth to "correct His dad" on Old Testament laws such as stoning of adulterous women to death.
Barron writes that Maher's arguments reveal a lack of understanding concerning the essence of the Biblical idea of faith.
"Faith, rightly understood, does not involve any surrender of one's critical intellectual powers, nor is it tantamount to the acceptance of things on the basis of no evidence. What Bill Maher characterizes as 'faith' is nothing but superstition or credulity or intellectual irresponsibility. It is an ersatz 'knowing' that falls short of the legitimate standards of reason. Real faith is not infra-rational but rather supra-rational, that is to say, not below reason but above reason and inclusive of it," Barron wrote.
The Mundelein Seminary President also responded to Maher's allegations that Christianity requires the setting aside of all rational thought and logic.
"God did not dictate the Scriptures word for word to people who received the message dumbly and automatically; rather, God spoke subtly and indirectly, precisely through human agents who employed distinctive literary techniques and who were conditioned by the cultures in which they found themselves and by the audiences they addressed."
Barron concludes, "If you are ever tempted to agree with Bill Maher on the nature of faith, I would invite you to read any page of Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, C.S. Lewis, or G.K. Chesterton and honestly ask yourself the question, "Does this sound like someone who has suspended his critical faculties?"
This is not the first time Maher has come under fire due to his anti-Christian comments.
In May 2007 the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights even called for Time Warner, the parent company of HBO, to fire Maher after negative comments he made against the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church.
However, Kevin Sorbo of the 2014 film "God's Not Dead" says responding to Maher is pointless due to the talk show host's extreme hate for Christianity.
"I wonder what happened to him in his lifetime, because the atheists I have met, not all of them are angry. I've got some very good friends who are atheists and they just don't believe, they simply don't believe. We've had great debates about it and things like that," Sorbo said in an interview responding to the TV show's remarks that God is a "murderer."
"There is no reason to even try to talk to a guy like that because he has so much hate."
