Forget apatheist, employ the word “atheist”.

Those from fellow Canadian astronomer and astrophysicist Hugh Ross to fellow current and former bloggers James Pate and very conservative Catholic Daren Carrey were telling me all along about Bill Maher.  The terminology “apatheist” was just cover for his atheism they all argued.  On Larry King Live last night he has actually confirmed their argument. He said to Larry King, “I’m against building mosques, churches, synagogues, temples anywhere, because I’m an atheist and I think these are places that perpetuate mass delusion.” Does this mean no more watching him on Real Time (bootlegged from Youtube)?  Does this mean I will end tags on this blog  called “Bill Maher’s war against religious stupidity?” NO!!!  I don’t agree with Bill Maher on everything and there some things that  I do agree with him deeply that we can be considered almost “soul mates”. I don’t do groupthink from anybody, left,right, radical Islam or millitant atheist. Period. Deal with it. Same goes with Bill. For those who read this blog almost a couple years ago, I even backed up Andrew Sullivan’s rebuke on Bill Maher’s approach to religion warning him that he was being a bigot.  Still to this day, I believe Andrew Sullivan was and is right.  For over 13 years actively watching Bill Maher on television (and online during the late 00’s and 2010), I have seen his position evolved from that he believed in God, hated organized relgion and seen the clergy as middleman or bureaucracy (a similiar, note not identical position I have) from his coined term of being an apatheist in which he described, “I’m not an atheist, though, because the belief that there is no God only mirrors the certitude of religion. No, I’m saying that doubt is the only appropriate response for human beings.”  Now he has come out and says he’s an atheist. I hope he can learn from the school of The Old Atheists, in which the old school atheists beieve that not everybody can be an atheist and it’s not in the best interest for everybody to hop on the bandwagon (The New Atheism, of course is in the opposite view). A friend of mine who I would classify in that school of atheism made a strong suggestion that I needed to go to church. Not to be indoctrinated but to be molded in character and continued direction. A person like that is a very good friend. Bill Maher would do better if he followed that approach and understand the concept of good faith vs. bad faith as Andrew Sullivan suggested. He’d be a better person for it.