Bill Maher blasts child-molesting Christians: Jesus is your 'shortcut' to exonerating yourselves

Real Time host Bill Maher launched one more salvo against reality star Josh Duggar on his show's blog, chiding him for what he described as a self-centered path to forgiveness.

"There is no middle man. There is no pixie dust," Maher wrote. "The idea that you can simply pray on it and ask Jesus for forgiveness — which he never turns down, cause he's Jesus — is a total short cut, and not what forgiveness actually entails. If you've done something as awful as molest a bunch of girls, the only people you can ask for forgiveness from are the bunch of girls you molested."

Maher blasted Duggar's family on his show earlier this month, calling them "the biggest freaks in the world." But on Tuesday, he focused on Duggar's online statement in which he admitted to molesting five girls, including his sisters.

"I understood that if I continued down this wrong road that I would end up ruining my life," Duggar wrote, adding that he "asked Christ" for forgiveness after speaking to the victims. Besides making himself out to be a victim, Maher wrote, Duggar was feeding into "Christianity's unique brand of chauvinistic paternalism."

"If you've done something as awful as molest a bunch of girls, the only people you can ask for forgiveness from are the bunch of girls you molested," Maher argued. "Jesus is just an easy and convenient way to exonerate yourself by receiving absolution from an imaginary man in your head."