Does Joy Behar have any idea what she believes?
if you watch this (otherwise pleasant and civil) interview with Father Edward Beck, you get the impression she’s confused about religion, atheism, and everything in between.
Things start to get weird at the 3:00 mark.
Behar admits she’s an Agnostic, but adds she wouldn’t go so far as to call herself an atheist because that’s “a commitment to something.” To what, exactly…? Reason? Logic? Common sense? Who knows.
She’s making the mistake of assuming that being an atheist means you must deny god’s existence with absolute certainty. Even Richard Dawkins doesn’t say that. But when you’re close to certain, you might as well just live as if you’re certain. That’s what most atheists do.
I thought it was silly for the Father to ask her whether she prayed to anyone… but it turned out to be a revealing question.
It turns out that, on Twitter, Behar had written “My prayers are with the people of Japan.”
Prayers to whom…? She doesn’t know.
When pressed, she said she simply accepts Pascal’s Wager (Better to be safe than sorry, right?)… ugh.
Soon after, almost as a throwaway line, she mentioned the statement “There are no atheists in foxholes”…
And then she said that she baptized her daughter…
She really calls herself an agnostic after all that?!
Behar gets a few sensible statements in there, but the priest seems like he’s the only one who knows where he stands.
Joy is like a non-religious version of Joel Osteen — she may use a particular label to describe herself, but she has no real idea where she stands on issues the rest of us (who use the label) figured out a long time ago. As a result, she may be more palatable to more people, but she lacks any real conviction.
In a time when other celebrities are out and proud about their non-belief, it’s frustrating to see someone like Behar holding back and sounding confused.
But I guess it’s better than the alternative, where voicing any doubt at all about faith is enough to kick you off the air.
(via DoctorE)