On Friday, HBO host Bill Maher criticized Christians for the U.S. Capitol Riot Attack while likening their faith to those who hold to QAnon conspiracy theories, The Daily Wire reports.
Maher, an atheist, contended that the January attack on the nation’s Capitol was ultimately “a faith-based initiative” in light of Christians who support former President Donald Trump.
“As long as we’re going to go to the trouble of another impeachment trial, we might as well be honest about what it’s really about,” he began. “The events of Jan. 6 were a faith-based initiative.”
Maher explained how Trumpism is a “Christian nationalist movement that believes Trump was literally sent from heaven to save them,” as he played a clip of Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) claiming that Trump was sent by God.
“There’s a lot of talk now in liberal corners about how Republicans should tell their base who still believe the election was rigged that they need to grow up and move on, and stop asking the rest of us to respect their mass delusion,” he added. “And of course it is a mass delusion, but the inconvenient truth here is that if you accord religious faith the kind of exalted respect we do here in America, you’ve already lost the argument that mass delusion is bad.”
Maher also took a shot at the book of Revelation, the last book in the Bible, because of its symbolism, which he compared to QAnon.
“It’s fun to laugh at QAnon, with the baby-eating lizard people and the pedophile pizza parlors, but have you ever read the Book of [Revelation]?” he said. “That’s the Bible. That’s your holy book, Christians.”
“Magical religious thinking is a virus, and QAnon is just its current mutation,” Maher argued. “That’s why megachurches play QAnon videos. It’s the same basic plot: Q is a prophet, Trump is the messiah, there’s an apocalyptic event looming, ‘the storm,’ there’s a titanic struggle of good versus evil, and if you want to win, just keep those checks coming in.”
He argued that the reason “the Trump mob” believes in the former President is because “they’re religious.”
“They’ve already made space in their heads for sh*t that doesn’t make sense”, Maher continued. “When you’re a QAnon fanatic, you’re also a fundamentalist Christian. They just go together, like macaroni and cheese or chardonnay and Valium.”
Photo courtesy: ©Getty Images/Michael Kovac/Stringer
Video courtesy: Real Time with Bill Maher
Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer and content creator. He is a contributing writer for CrosswalkHeadlines and the host of the For Your Soul Podcast, a podcast devoted to sound doctrine and biblical truth. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Alliance Theological Seminary.
