Bill Maher scolded a guest on his HBO show Friday night for trying to downplay the Boston Marathon bombing suspects’ alleged ties to radical Islam.
Maher’s Real Time guest was Professor Brian Levin, Director of the Center of the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.
In the discussion about the Tsarnaev brothers, Maher declared that today, i.e. in contemporary society, it is his opinion that all religions are not alike. Levin insisted that there are hypocrites in all faiths who do bad things. Maher immediately responded with “that’s liberal bullsh*t right there.”
Bill Maher , who is an admitted atheist and an aggressive critic of all religions, admitted that there are indeed Christian hypocrites and that in the Middle Ages, Christianity was responsible for terrible atrocities, i.e., “was the bigger problem.” But in the course of the discussion, he added the following: “They’re not as dangerous. I mean, there’s only one faith, for example, that kills you or wants to kill you if you draw a bad cartoon of the prophet. There’s only one faith that kills you or wants to kill you if you renounce the faith. An ex-Muslim is a very dangerous thing. Talk to Salman Rushdie after the show about Christian versus Islam. So, you know, I’m just saying, let’s keep it real.”
Bill Maher asked Prof. Levin if had seen the Broadway play “The Book of Mormon.” Levin quipped that it’s too difficult to get tickets. Maher then said, “Okay, can you imagine if they did ‘The Book of Islam’? Could they do that? There’s only one religion that threatens violence and carries it out for things like that. Could they do ‘The Book of Islam’ on Broadway?”
When Levin answered “possibly so,” Maher was skeptical to say the least: “Possibly so? Tell me what color the sky is in your world.”
Maher rejected Levin’s claim that he was “promoting Islamic hatred” on national TV and agreed with Levin that most Muslims are fine, upstanding people.
In a previous broadcast, Maher — who himself is a big liberal Democrat and Obama campaign contributor– even expressed doubts about California’s high tax rate. “And here in California, I just want to say liberals — you could actually lose me. It’s outrageous what we’re paying — over 50 percent. I’m willing to pay my share, but yeah, it’s ridiculous.”
Watch Bill Maher discuss religious extremism with Prof. Brian Levin: