Raised a Catholic, the Maher family quit attending Mass when he was 13 due to the Church’s teaching on birth control.
Entire story here. Bits below.
To the teenage Maher, not being required to attend church anymore was “fantastic. Thank you Jesus and move on. But I think it did plant a seed in my head that you could change your core beliefs.
“I was still having some ideas that there is some mythical man living in my head or in a cloud, who you better appease in some way, who you bargain with when you think you screw up and implore for help when you want a job.”
Maher, who is 52, said he was “still making deals when I was 40, and here I am today and I don’t believe any of that anymore. It is an evolution. We all go through an evolution, so join me.”
“Religulous” (the title is a made-up word meant to imply being seriously religious) already has detractors. At its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, demonstrators turned up with placards that read, “Pray for Bill Maher.” He made light of it, asking how many in the audience were praying for him. His bigger concern was that the film’s first audience had laughed so loud at a setup joke that they missed the big one at least half a dozen times.
His response to the nomination of Sarah Palin as vice president has been colored by his new career. “As a citizen, I was appalled. As a comedian, I was thrilled. And as someone who has a movie coming out on religion, it was very fortuitous.
“She was a Pentecostal, and they speak in tongues. There’s a segment in the movie where we have a guy babbling in tongues, ‘I love you.’ It’s just too funny. But is America ready for a president who speaks in tongues? I mean other than the one we have now who speaks in tongues unintentionally.”
