Bill Maher - God or Godless?

Ben Johnson observes that comedian Bill Maher is wrong to call religion a "neurological disorder." Religion more often immunizes people against such mental disorders.

Nazi death camp survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl in his book Man's Search for Meaning (originally titled From Death Camp to Existentialism)reported that those with religious faith were far less likely to help Nazis shove others into ovens than were those unanchored in religion like Maher. Indeed, a frequent question of the past century is whether people can be good without God. If we are merely animals, then why not rape, kill and steal if this confers an evolutionary advantage?

Maher was raised by a Jewish mother and Roman Catholic father, acquiring thereby, as the old joke goes, both guilt and shame. He repudiated religion at age 13 on the day his father did.

Maher "has said that Bibles should be required to carry warning labels," reports DiscoverTheNetwork.com, and that religious faith "justifies insanity. Flying planes into buildings was a faith-based initiative."

Those like Maher who put their ultimate faith in solipsism, science, evolution and democracy might want to explain why the vast majority of human beings embraces religions. What evolutionary advantage has religious belief confered that makes it so widespread in humankind? How can Maher accept democracy in a species where the vast majority, according to him, suffers from a "neurological disorder?"