Poor Bill Maher. The host of HBO’s Real Time told the Hollywood Reporter that he’ll never win an Emmy because “A panel of like 10 people watches one tape. If half of those people are
religious, that probably eliminates me right there. A lot of people wouldn’t
vote for such an outspoken atheist, someone who made ‘Religulous.’“

Well, with all due respect, Bill, that’s just religulous — I mean ridiculous.

Didn’t Kathy Griffin win at least two Emmys for her appropriately named reality show My Life on the D List — one after she told Jesus to “suck it” in her previous acceptance speech?

Now, Bill, I can understand why Kathy Griffin winning an award that you haven’t might lead you to believe that there is no God (yes, I use a capital “G”) but I don’t think logic is on your side regarding either the reason you haven’t won an Emmy or the existence of the Almighty.

But let’s just continue to deal with the Emmy question here.

Ricky Gervais, the star and co-creator of the original British version of The Office is a well-known atheist as well as an Emmy and Golden Globe award winner. In fact, he recently hosted the Emmy Awards. That’s a gig that’s  not likely to go to Kirk Cameron any time soon. He had previously hosted the Golden Globes. I don’t Kirk’s in line for that job either.

Now, Bill, I’m not suggesting that Kirk actually should be tapped to host either the Emmys or the Globes, but I do suspect his open evangelism has probably cost him more Hollywood jobs than your atheism has cost you.

BTW, I recently caught Gervais’ film The Invention of Lying on DVD. It’s a cute and original idea for a movie — imagining a world in which it has never occurred to anyone to tell a lie. That is until screenwriter Mark Bellison (Gervais) discovers that it is, in fact, possible to lie.

In the movie, he tells his frightened dying mother that there is life after death and that it’s a life of peace and freedom from worry. When word gets out of Bellison’s “discovery” he is forced to elaborate and tell a world eager to hear the good news of a creator who cares about them.

So, why wasn’t this movie called The Invention of Truth?  Because in Gervais’ world view God is a lie. Actually, to believers (of which I am one), the real invention of lying was when the idea of a world without the need for a loving Creator took root.

It’s interesting that in Gervais’ alternative universe people not only don’t lie. They say unnecessarily blunt and cruel things to each other that would not require lying to leave unsaid. Is Gervais the atheist suggesting that faith leads to kinder, gentler world?  

Anyway, in the movie God is not referred to as God at all but the “Man in the Sky,” a nice phrase to make the whole idea of belief sound as silly as possible.

Gervais, of course, is not alone in his dismissal of belief. While audiences routinely reward those increasingly-rare movies and TV shows that portray God and religion in a positive light, Hollywood rarely does. In fact, it’s the profane and “edgy” that wins plaudits and awards.

And should a believer actually win an award they can expect to endure the mockery of Bill Maher, Kathy Griffin and others should they dare to actually thank God in their acceptance speech. The peer-pressure message being that belief in God is uncool and really should not be expressed in public.

Maher did recently get off one funny line on that subject though. When offering his New Rules
for the Emmy Awards he included this one: “If by some remote chance God does exist, he must smite anyone who thanks him at
the Emmys. Seriously, you’ve just impressed a bunch of atheists, Jews, drug
addicts and homosexuals, and they like you enough to have given you a golden
idol. God doesn’t want your thanks — he wants an apology.”

While I don’t really think God has a problem with the concept of awards for excellent work, they are way overly valued (and overly handed out) in show business. How many awards are there for performers, writers and directors of movies and TV shows anyway? It’s a bit obscene — and the endless stream of shows do take on an air of idol worship.

But I digress.

Getting back you, Bill, have you considered the possibility that the real reason you haven’t won an Emmy isn’t because of the supposed power of religious Hollywood but because Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert (and Betty White for that matter) are funnier than you are?