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Bill Maher: Obama's an Atheist

  • Rob Kerby Religious persecution, missions, Christianity around the world
  • Updated Jun 24, 2014

Enough religious posturing, says one of TV’s  more cynical gadflies, Bill Maher – let’s just accept that President Barack Obama doesn’t believe in any God. 

“He’s a drop-dead atheist, absolutely,” declared Maher on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” Monday night. 

“Try as he might,” reports Cheryl K. Chumley for the Washington Times, “President Obama’s public push to showcase himself as a man of faith just isn’t believable, comedian Bill Maher said. “Obama’s always spouting spiritual [expletive] and I don’t believe it for a second.”

On the news website the Blaze, Mike Opelka reported that Maher – who was appearing on Stewart’s nightly show that appears on the Comedy Central cable channel, “also took a shot at Hillary Clinton after she said the Bible is her favorite book. ‘You couldn’t find something more violent, like Game of Thrones?’ joked Maher.”

Maher was discussing the religious nature of America with the show host when “Stewart called the United States the most ‘God-fearing’ of Western nations,” reports Chumley.

Maher snickered, adding that, as is “often the case … we’re a step behind.”

“You know who’s a liar about this is Obama. He’s a drop-dead atheist, absolutely,” Maher said, charging that the president only pretended to join a church to “move ahead” in politics.”

Maher, a self-professed atheist, isn’t the first to make such a statement about Obama. Atheist Richard Dawkins said during an October appearance on Maher’s show “Real Time”: “Like many people, I’m sure that Obama is an atheist.”

Another of Maher’s and Stewart’s frequent targets, former Vice President Dick Cheney didn’t speculate on Obama’s spirituality, but also “wouldn’t say if he thinks Barack Obama is a traitor,” reports Zach Noble for the Blaze. “The former vice president appeared on ‘This Week with George Stephanopoulos’ Sunday morning, where the host asked about Cheney’s Obama-slamming op-ed published last week in the Wall Street Journal.

 “It almost seems like you’re accusing the president of treason here,” said ABC News Chief White House correspondent Jon Karl.

Cheney said Obama’s “dead-wrong,” but he didn’t mean him “any disrespect.” 

“We create a vacuum [in Iraq] and it’s being filled,” Cheney said, noting that neighboring nations and militant groups like the Islamic Army of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) are seizing power as U.S. influence wanes.”

Obama “is dramatically limiting the capability of future presidents to deal with crises by virtue of the policies he’s taken,” Cheney told Karl. “The scope of the problem in part is based upon the unwillingness of the president to recognize we have a problem. They’re still living back in the day when they claimed, ‘We got bin Laden, terrorist problem solved.’ That wasn’t true then, it’s even less true today.”

Back to Obama’s faith or lack of it, “When someone says they don’t think Obama is actually a Christian, the expectation would be that they think he’s secretly a Muslim. Not Bill Maher,” writes Glenn Davis for Mediaite. “Maher apparently holds that Obama isn’t actually a Christian, but merely pretends to be one to keep up appearances for the sake of his political career.”

“Jon Stewart softly rebutted that line by bringing up the whole Reverend Wright controversy of 2008 — wasn’t Obama a member of that church?” notes blogger Hemant Mehta.  “Maher responded by saying it was only for political purposes and that Obama was a ‘member’ of the church but never really attended services.”

Unconvinced, “If Obama’s an atheist,” quipped Mehta who writes a column on Patheos called The Friendly Atheist, “then he sure as [expletive] is working his [expletive] off to keep it a secret. “

Publication date: June 24, 2014