While Bill O'Reilly claims that his War on Christmas is a longstanding "nice" tradition, it is really the angry rantings of an angry and deluded man. He actually believes that this bogus apocalyptic conflict is being waged by angry, atheist forces who are trying to bring about the demise of America with their advocacy for gay marriage, abortion rights, and drug legalization, all of which, according to Bill violate "Judeo-Christian" tradition." And Bill's anger goes beyond his "war" as demonstrated by his cheap-shots at anyone and everyone who does not subscribe to his hetero-normative and Christian views. But Bill is trying to understand why the atheists are so angry. Friday night, he sought to psychoanalyze those imaginary forces aligned against his favorite holiday - and in so doing launched one of his patented, but Holy Ghost inspired, cheap shots against a NY Times writer. I guess Bill is just so overblown with a sense of self importance, he doesn't realize his extraordinary cognitive dissonance - dare we say hypocrisy?!
Bill started off by validating his delusion with the comment that despite the denial of a war on Christmas, "there is one." Without offering any specifics, he claimed that transgressions against Christmas are rampant. He quoted from NY Times columnist Gail Collins who wrote that O'Reilly and the hate group, the American Family Association are encouraging boycotts of stores that "do not connect their aim to sell massive amounts of clothes...with the birth of Jesus." Bill said that the comment was "snide" and "false." (Bill never lies, right?) He claimed that he only gets involved with stores is when they "forbid" their employees from saying Merry Christmas. Bill didn't mention that his claim, that several stores forbade their employees from saying "Merry Christmas" is also false. Without offering any specifics, Bill accused Gail Collins of having "misled her readers before." (Not anything that Bill would do, of course). He whined that the editors of the evil NY Times "don't seem to mind." He claimed that he invited her to appear on the Factor but "she's hiding under her desk." (Cue the death threats)
After introducing his guest, Chris Stedman, who is an assistant humanist chaplain at Harvard, Bill asked about Stedman's opinion of an atheist billboard in Times Square. Bill, who publicly assassinated the character of an abortion doctor even after Dr. Tiller was assassinated, opined that the billboard is "mean spirited." Stedman admitted that such billboards are not helpful as they distract from the reality that American atheists are not trusted. (Thank you Fox News)
In asking about the "mentality" of atheists, ever the narcissist, Bill mentioned that he had attended Harvard. He exhorted atheists to leave Christmas alone because "it has nothing to do with you." (Hey Bill, what people say to each other at Christmas and what they call the seasonal evergreen trees are none of your business.) He also said that atheists get the day off which is another O'Reilly absurdity because there are many people (public safety, hospitals) who work on Christmas. Bill just didn't understand "why they have that philosophy." Bill continued to whine about groups that sue schools over Christmas carols. (Right Bill, let's force those Jews and other non-Christians to sing about the "savior.")
When Stedman spoke on behalf of inclusive holiday displays, O'Reilly agreed but added that he and "his crew" objected to the atheist sign in the Seattle state house. He proudly admitted that he "mocked" Macy's for it's "absurdity" in bringing in Santa Claus without mentioning the word Christmas. (Macy's promo said that Santa would help with - OMG - your "holiday" list.)
O'Reilly's hypocrisy then reach a pinnacle of absurdity: "What I'm seeing is a lot of anger, not from you...but from other atheists." Bill could hardly contain his anger when he continued "they're just so angry and I don't know what they're angry about." When Stedman responded that he would rather see atheists examine their beliefs rather than put up signs, Bill interjected "rather than alienating 82% of the population which sees you guys as cheap shotting them."
OH THE IRONY - O'Reilly who doesn't have a problem alienating anybody who doesn't believe as he does complains about poor, alienated Christians. O'Reilly, who doesn't have a problem cheap shotting anybody, as he did with Ms. Collins, complains about "cheap shots." You just can't make this shit up. Oh right, you can if you're Bill O'Reilly.
BTW - O'Reilly's Christmas war has increased memberships for atheist organizations.
In fact not once have I even had an atheist knock on my door asking for a donation, or tell me I’m going to hell for disagreeing or not voting for their candidate that they are convinced that their God would approve of as they use whatever holy book they believe in as an excuse to hate, discriminate or kill you and push their religious and/or political agenda on those who would dare have a different opinion than they do.
Amen.