On Friday's Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, host Maher ended the show with a commentary against religion as he demanded that churches in the U.S. be taxed. The HBO comedian compared taxing religion to taxing destructive habits like smoking by suggesting a tax on Sunday school so children "don't get stupid."
Conveniently ignoring that the Nazis and communists who mass murdered tens of millions were atheists, Maher also linked religion to genocide and other destructive behavior:
If we levy taxes -- sin taxes, they call them -- on things that are bad to get people to stop doing them, why in heaven's name don't we tax religion? A sexist, homophobic, magic act that's been used to justify everything from genital mutilation to genocide. You want to raise the tax on tobacco so kids don't get cancer? Okay, but let's put one on Sunday school so they don't get stupid.
He then tied religion to terrorism without noting that Islam in particular is the religion usually linked to modern terrorism:
Americans are losing their religion because they're catching on that religions do much more harm than good. Who enabled child sex abuse for centuries? What's the common thread between ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and most other terrorist groups in the world?
A couple of minutes into his commentary, the HBO host cited surveys showing a lower percentage of millennials are religious -- deriding faith as "the new pubic hair" -- as he called for the U.S. Supreme Court to take action:
The Supreme Court of the United States really needs to take a case about taxing churches because it hasn't done that since 1970. And since then, religion has become much less popular, especially with younger people. To them, religion is the new pubic hair -- 35 percent of millennials want nothing to do with it, and the rest worship an ancient Jew born over 2,000 years ago: Bernie Sanders.
Maher then complained about having to "subsidize" other people's religious activities while he does not himself benefit from subsidizing of his habit of pot use as he showed a picture of himself next to a bong. Maher:
And it's not just millennials. My flock -- the atheists, agnostics and anti-religionists out there -- are now the second biggest denomination in America right behind evangelicals. We're 22.8 percent. That means almost a quarter of us in America are being forced to subsidize a myth we're not buying into. Why am I subsidizing their Sunday morning hobby? They don't subsidize mine.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, April 15, Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO:
10:52 p.m. ET
The Supreme Court of the United States really needs to take a case about taxing churches because it hasn't done that since 1970. And since then, religion has become much less popular, especially with younger people. To them, religion is the new pubic hair -- 35 percent of millennials want nothing to do with it, and the rest worship an ancient Jew born over 2,000 years ago: Bernie Sanders.
And it's not just millennials. My flock -- the atheists, agnostics and anti-religionists out there -- are now the second biggest denomination in America right behind evangelicals. We're 22.8 percent. That means almost a quarter of us in America are being forced to subsidize a myth we're not buying into. Why am I subsidizing their Sunday morning hobby? They don't subsidize mine.
If we levy taxes -- sin taxes, they call them -- on things that are bad to get people to stop doing them, why in heaven's name don't we tax religion? A sexist, homophobic, magic act that's been used to justify everything from genital mutilation to genocide. You want to raise the tax on tobacco so kids don't get cancer? Okay, but let's put one on Sunday school so they don't get stupid.
Americans are losing their religion because they're catching on that religions do much more harm than good. Who enabled child sex abuse for centuries? What's the common thread between ISIS, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, and most other terrorist groups in the world? Who's behind the new law in Mississippi that says that Mississippi now cannot, among other things, force a baker to bake for a gay wedding? Because in Mississippi, if you don't put it in the right hole, you don't get cake.
And speaking of cake, it's the same religious freedom people that last year passed a law in Indiana that allowed restaurants to refuse to feed gay people. As Jesus would have wanted. Ah, yes, sweet, sweet religious freedom. Free at last to eat the potato skins here at the Flapjack Hut without some gay lord forcing his penis in our good Christian food and turning it gay.
You gay people hungry? Well, you should have thought of that before you embarked on your life of satanic perversions. Next time, have sex in a vagina. And if you take a picture of it and bring it into Bennigan's, you get a free appetizer.
