I was recently watching some youtube videos of Bill Maher arguing with Christians and I was dumbfounded by his inability to understand the most basic teachings of the Catholic Church.  When I found out that Bill Maher grew up Catholic, my attitude changed drastically from frustration at him to anger toward us.  He believes these stupid things because that is what we taught him.  There was an age when catechesis was terrible and he’s a product of terrible catechesis.  Now, the blame is not totally on the people who taught him.  He’s now a grown man who can read and think on his own so he needs to grow up and read even the most basic of theology books.  I have second graders in my school who understand more about the Catholic Church than he does.

    Bill Maher’s biggest misunderstanding is the Bible.  For some reason, and he never explains why (at least in the videos I’ve been watching), Bill believes that the Bible HAS TO BE 100% true OR it’s 100% false.  That makes absolutely no sense.  In case you aren’t aware of this, the Bible is not a single book; rather, the Bible is a library of books.  At Mass we say “a reading from the book of….” for a reason.  Claiming that the Bible is either completely true or completely false is like walking into your local library and stating that if there’s a single work of fiction then the whole library needs to be burned down.  THAT’S NONSENSE!  You wouldn’t go to the fiction section to read Harry Potter and then be upset when you find out theres no such thing as Hogwarts.  In the same way you can’t go to the poetry section and expect to learn the facts of the second world war.  In the Bible we have history books (Exodus, Kings, Chronicles, etc), fiction books (Esther), Poetry (Song of Songs, Psalms, etc), non-fiction (Gospels, Acts, Prophets), and other typed of books.  We always have to know what we’re reading so that we can put the book into its proper context.  

    Bill Maher also has this belief that the Catholic Church and Science are at odds with each other.  Again, my grade school students can name Catholic Scientists who made great advances in the sciences such as Copernicus (who also became a priest), Fr. Georges Lemaitre (founder of the Big Bang theory), Fr. Gregor Mendel (discovered science of genetics), Fr. Giuseppe Mercalli (discovered system for measuring earthquakes), Br. William of Ockham (discovered Ockhams Razor), and the list goes on and on.  Remember, Bill Maher thinks that if the Bible isn’t 100% true then none of it is…so Genesis chapter 1 is where he stoped reading.  Forget about all the Catholic astronomers and scientists who NEVER TAUGHT that creation happened in 7 days…the Bible is wrong so all Catholics are wrong!  Silly Bill Maher…

    Finally, Bill Maher believes that people made up the idea of God and that there is no logical proof for the existence of God.  In all honesty, this takes a lot more philosophical thinking and if Bill has a hard enough time using Google and reading simple books to understand where he went wrong on the previous two points then I have little hope he’ll ever be able to exercise the mind enough to think philosophically.  Poor Bill.  For those seeking arguments for the existence of God, look no further than Bishop Barron.  A simple Youtube search for “Bishop Barron existence of God” will give you everything you need.  Nothing I write will be better than Bishop Barron’s explanation.  

    The best thing we can do is make sure no more Bill Maher’s come out of our parishes or schools.  We need to be much better about teaching the faith and passing it down to the next generation.  Keep going back to the basics and help people understand that the Catholic Church is logical, that we’re intelligent, that the Catholic Church is so smart we have contributed to some of the greatest scientific findings in the modern era.  We aren’t blindly following anyone or anything.  Catholicism is the truth and makes sense.  If it didn’t, then Jesus never would have said, “I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life.”  (John 14:6).  Pray for Bill Maher and his conversion.