Bill Maher
on Religion

"Religion, you know, I think is very bad."

"I think religion is a neurological disorder."

"I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies."

"I don't respect religon. I don't respect superstitious thinking and that is what religous is."

"If I thought the Lord was speaking to me I'd check myself into Bellevue, and I think you should too."

"They believe in religion, which as – I think it was Jesse Ventura who had that quote about religion is a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers."

"When you were a kid and they were telling you whatever you believe in religion, do you think if they had switched the fairy tales that they read to you in bed with the Bible, you would know the difference?"

"When people say to me, 'You hate America,' I don't hate America. I love America. I am just embarrassed that it has been taken over by people like evangelicals, by people who do not believe in science and rationality."

"Do you think if it was the fairy tale about a man who lived inside of a whale and it was religion that Jack built a beanstalk today, you would know the difference? Why do you believe in one fairy tale and not the other? Just because adults told you it was true and they scared you into believing it, at pain of death, at pain of burning in hell."

"When people say to me, 'You hate America,' I don't hate America. I love America. I am just embarrassed that it has been taken over by people like evangelicals, by people who do not believe in science and rationality. It is the 21st century. And I will tell you, my friend. The future does not belong to the evangelicals. The future does not belong to religion."

"What I have against religion is that they start you when you are so defenseless. I mean, I was three when they started pumping this bullshit into my head. I believed in Santa Claus and the Fairy Godmother, of course I believed in a virgin birth, and a guy lived in a whale, and a woman came from a rib. But then something happened that made me doubt all of it: I graduated sixth grade!"

"I think that religion stops people from thinking. I think it justifies crazies. I think flying planes into a building was a faith-based initiative. I think religion is a neurological disorder. If you look at it logically, it's something that was drilled into your head when you were a small child. It certainly was drilled into mine at that age. And you really can't be responsible when you are a kid for what adults put into your head."

"Religion, you know, I think is very bad. And it's extremely dangerous at this point in time. I read a statistic, I think 61 percent of the people in this country say religion solves some or all -- most or all of our problems. OK, religion solves nothing. OK, religion doesn't solve it. You know, it's like a hot bath does not solve a cold apartment. It may salve for awhile, but it doesn't solve it. It actually makes more problems because faith is a way to make a virtue of things that make absolutely no sense."