Bill Maher trashes so-called Liberty University

Sorry for the lack of blogging; I’ve been terribly uninspired these last few days (not to mention how this insane heat wave is almost literally melting my brain). To try and make up for it, here’s Bill Maher explaining how Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University is about as Orwellianly named as is Ken Ham’s Creation “Museum” ^{[brief sorta-NSFW image at the start]}:

My transcript: (click the [+/-] to open/close →)

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BILL MAHER: And finally, new rule: You can’t expect me to believe anything Mitt Romney said last week at Liberty University, because A, he’s a liar, and B, Liberty University isn’t really a university. It’s not like an actual statesman visited a real college. It’s more like the Tupac hologram visited Disneyland and said what he would do as President during the Main Street Electrical Parade.

Yes, that’s right. Mitt Romney, from the Church of Jesus Christ: Indian Fighter, spoke on Saturday at a school founded by Jerry Falwell, a preacher who once said that AIDS was God’s wrath for fingering the Teletubbies. A guy in magic gym shorts talking to virgin Baptists. Clown, meet college.

But again, not really a college. Because Liberty teaches Creation Science. In fact, they have an actual center for Creation study, complete with some bones and a guy with a lab coat. Suck on that, Smithsonian Institute! And they teach that the Earth is five thousand years old and dinosaur fossils washed up on Noah’s Flood. This is a school you flunk out of when you get the answers right.

Now, I would say we should take away their accreditation, but it’s a private college and they can teach whatever they want. But at the very least, diplomas from Liberty should come with a huge asterisk next to your name, and at the bottom, it should say, “This institution teaches superstitious nonsense. Hire at your own risk.” Conservatives often say that gay marriage cheapens their marriage. Well, I think a diploma from Liberty cheapens my degree from a real school. I worked really hard for four years and sold a lot of drugs to get that thing.

So, if you wanna go to some place that teaches the Bible is literally true and the Earth was created last Tuesday when God got into gardening, that’s fine, but you can’t call it a university. Target serves pizza; doesn’t make it a restaurant. It’s just wrong for Liberty to hand out diplomas that look just like real diplomas from actual schools that teach facts. Look, this is the Liberty diploma, see? There’s no gold stars or smiley faces or Care Bears; it looks real!

But here’s the problem with confusing a church with a school: It mixes up the things you believe, religion, with the things we know, education. Then you start thinking that Creationism is science, and gay aversion therapy is psychology, and praying away hurricanes is meteorology. It’d be like teaching American history by saying the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written by God, and even the world’s most ridiculous imbecile wouldn’t say that.

GLENN BECK (at commencement speech): It is God’s finger that wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

MAHER: Mitt Romney recently told the crowd, “I happen to believe that the Constitution was not just brilliant, but probably inspired.” And everyone applauded, because they’d all seen this painting, James McNaughton’s One Nation Under God, which reinforces the now-mandatory Republican that the Constitution isn’t the work of brilliant-but-imperfect statesmen, but a divinely inspired blueprint, conceived by God himself and hand-delivered by his only begotten son, Kenny Loggins.

Sorry, but our Constitution wasn’t divinely inspired. It’s just that the guys who wrote it were smart ’cause they went to real colleges. Thomas Jefferson went to William & Mary. Madison went to Princeton. Alexander Hamilton went to Columbia. And those schools should not be put in the same category as Oral Roberts, or Bob Jones, or the Dueling Banjos College of Praying and Preaching – or Liberty, which not only shouldn’t be called a university, it shouldn’t be called “Liberty”, since it strictly forbids kissing or drinking. And if you’re in college and you can’t kiss or drink, good luck fucking.

“This is a school you flunk out of when you get the answers right.” Love it. “Liberty University” – as many words as there are errors.

In addition, in case you missed it, Right Wing Watch recently pointed out how “liberty” really has absolutely nothing to do with that creepy, puritanically fascistic place.

(via Friendly Atheist)

Tags: Bill Maher • Liberty University • Mitt Romney • universities • colleges