I would have preferred that Bill Maher had taken on the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed over the fact that he's a huge flaming hypocrite, a con-man and a crook on this Friday's Real Time, but the audience got to watch the two of them spar over religion and whether the Bible ought to be interpreted literally instead.
If Reed would like to know what's wrong with America's "moral ills" all he needs to do is go take a good long look in the mirror to find out.
That said, it was rather humorous watching Reed squirm as Maher read a number of passages from the Bible to him and asked him to defend them: Bill Maher Battles Ralph Reed: People Pull Faith ‘Right Out of Their Ass’:
They went back and forth over what’s to blame for America’s moral ills before Reed said that religion provides comfort and moral guidelines to people. Maher agreed, but said that religion is “just something people pulled right out of their ass.”
Maher argued that religion has done much more bad in the world than good, and when Reed brought up homeless shelters and charities, Maher shot back, “But you can do those things without believing in magic.”
Maher then went down a list of things the Bible condones, like slavery, to make a point about how Biblical literalists aren’t really literalists. Reed attempted to explain off some of the more egregious passages, but Maher asked, “If the Bible’s a perfect book written by a perfect guy, why is this in there?”
