The Tragedy of George Carlin

Last night, I watched the Kennedy Center show honoring (posthumously) George Carlin. A truly brilliant, insightful, funny comedian, Carlin's bits over his 40 year career in standup were introduced by a number of comedians and I thoroughly enjoyed the chuckles down memory lane.

Until the next-to-last presenter: Bill Maher, the smirking, rabidly liberal former funnyman who is not only a professed atheist, but virulently anti-religious. Maher referred to a line he used to use in his standup, before he "saw the light and realized how stupid and awful religion was and that there is no God" (a paraphrase, admittedly): "suicide is like telling God, 'You can't fire me, I quit!'". Actually, a tragically funny bit. Maher then introduced Carlin's bit about shrinking the 10 Commandments down to 2, and it became obvious that the late George Carlin was a complete atheist. Not a smirking, small-time-bully atheist like Maher, but a cold, calculating unbeliever. The bit wasn't funny - in fact, putting this piece of Carlin's life last in the presentation left me unutterably sad for him. Sad that he hated religious institutions, sad that he rejected the Creator who gave him life, intellect and amazing creativity. But sad mostly because all these people were celebrating the life of someone who denied the very existence of the Giver of Life, and who found out after it was too late that "even the demons acknowledge that Jesus is Lord - and tremble".