HBO's Bill Maher Makes A Case For Ghosts Near Halloween To Steven Pinker
HBO's Real Time Host BIll Maher Makes A Persuasive Case For Ghosts
Ghost hunting evidence hashed out on a topical, politically driven TV talk show? Does a veteran comedian and show host’s intellectual analysis stand even a ghost of a chance? Bill Maher waded into paranormal waters during his last HBO installment.
Believe it or not, HBO’s Real Time host Bill Maher appears to be something of a genuine ghost supporter. No, not the social media sudden abandoning of a friend or romantic partner. This ain’t ghosting. We’re talking the once alive, now deceased haunting houses ghosts. This is the sort of ghost we see in classic fright films such as Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining or the Robert Wise directed The Haunting.
Now Maher never says he saw a ghost, in fact he says the opposite during the show. At the very least he seems to be exploring the concept on Real Time. While speaking to Steven Pinker, a prominent cognitive psychologist, Maher brought up ghosts and how so many apparently intelligent and highly rational people claim to see phantoms, spirits or plain old fashioned ghosts.
Steven Pinker - A Rational Thinker
On Maher’s Real Time show of October 8th 20201, Steven Pinker a professor from Harvard University, author of Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters, chatted with Maher during the opener of his show. Ghosts weren’t the topic, but soon rattled into the cordial spoken fray.
The discussion centered on a general scarcity of good news media reporting. Pinker offered this on the lack of inspiring news coverage, “Good things are things that don’t happen,” Pinker said, “and a lot of improvements are incremental.” He argued the media simply won’t report on things which slowly develop or aren’t controversial or charged. For example; how the poor of our planet is significantly helped out of poverty conditions, by the media broadcasting “137,000 Escaped From Extreme Poverty.” one day.
Finally, it was time for Maher to get down to chatting up the ghost with the most. Bill Maher - paranormal investigator? Comic Ghost Hunter or Ghostbuster? Perhaps.
Here’s how the comedian and HBO talk show host put it:
I know many people. Very intelligent people, who’ve had an experience with what we would call a ghost. They’re not religious people necessarily, nor irrational people, they’re very smart people. They have some testimony or something that happened… they saw furniture move… odor and a whooshing went by… some sort of thing which led these really rational people to think, I don’t know what it is, but that there’s a fucking ghost in the world.
Maher prefaces this ghostly rant by telling Pinker and his audience what he’d said in his documentary on religion, Religulous.
I want to know how otherwise very intelligent people can wall off a part of their mind and believe in something which I think is intellectually embarrassing and obviously false.
TV’s Ghost Arguing Host
It’s clear that although Maher wasn’t mocking his acquaintances, friends or even family who may believe in ghosts, or who have had well documented experiences which may be called ghostly encounters, he certainly wasn’t claiming these believers possessed an unvarnished truth. In response, Pinker replied that the notion of believing in a mind and body separate from one another is a natural one - well supported by the dreamstate, as when we dream, we feel our mind is detached from our physical form.
Despite the fact that Bill Maher argues a belief in ghosts to highlight that some highly intelligent people in his life adhere to controversial or even easily mocked beliefs, the fact remains people experience convincing moments which can’t be explained by either themselves, Bill Maher or medical professionals such as Stephen Pinker.
So, what should HBO’s Real Time ghost host do with all these spirit believers in his life?
Instead of brushing off authentically reported experiences or dismissing them as “obviously false” or “intellectually embarrassing”, perhaps Bill Maher should bring on a few respected paranormal experts to discuss a persistent phenomenon which fascinates and motivates philosophers, artists, theologians, writers and everyday people since before the start of recorded history.