Bill O'Reilly Still Believes That Jesus Guided Evolution & Atheists Suck
Reported by Priscilla - October 6, 2011 -
Despite science having determined that gravity causes tides, Bill O'Reilly believes that it's really Jesus who is pushing all that water. Despite science having provided us with a plethora of evidence that supports evolution, Bill O'Reilly believes that Jesus "guided" evolution and that "intelligent design," which is repackaged creationism, is the real deal. Despite his history of an accusation of sexual harassment, lies, voyeurism, and personal attacks, Bill O'Reilly presents as a devout Catholic who sees "Judeo-Christianity" as a "restraining" force for the good of society. And as a product of a 50's Catholic educational system which taught that "non-Catholics" were going to a hell that had a special place for commies and atheists, Bill O'Reilly has some big time fear and loathing of atheists like Richard Dawkins who occasionally stops by the Factor so that Bill can burnish his Christian creds by scoring an imaginary intellectual victory over the forces of atheistic evil. On last night's Factor, Bill touched on all the aforementioned memes in his discussion of Dawkin's newest book. Contrary to the Fox Nation headline, O'Reilly didn't "crush" Dawkins. In fact, he, once again, showed himself to be a true intellectual lightweight and poster boy for the anti-science right wing who, one assumes, are a major component of the Fox "News" audience and whose views are living proof of Neanderthals among us.
Bill immediately framed his message with his background poster of evolutionary biologist Dawkins over the phrase "advocating atheism." (Oh,noo) He used a typical O'Reilly smear tactic of injecting his own opinion as fact by describing Dawkins as being "on a crusade to convince believers that they're idiots." He then played the video of his interview of Dawkins who, as O'Reilly has pointed out, has written a book, for children, which celebrates reason. (Oh,noo). Bill, with his paper over his right finger, accused Dawkins of wanting children to "reject God and religion." (Oh, noo) When Dawkins said it was a book about science, Father Bill said that "it mocks God." When Dawkins asked him which part of the book did that, O'Reilly said that he "went through the book" which says that "everything can be explained by science." (Oh, noo) O'Reilly felt that the inclusion of world creation myths constituted the "mocking" and accused Dawkins of playing "semantic games" because "you're trying to say that kids are idiots if they don't believe in God." (Who's playing semantic games?) When Dawkins referenced Judeo-Christian myth, Pastor Bill said it wasn't a myth, but a reality that our country is based on. (Who's an "idiot?")
When Dawkins said that what Bill said wasn't true, theologian Bill launched into a standard right wing Christian screed, which is seen frequently on Fox Nation, that some of the worst regimes were atheistic communists (those nuns taught Bill well) such as Stalin and Mao. After Dawkins said that these regimes were political, Bill postulated that his philosophy is that religion teaches "constraint" (LOL) and "good will toward men" which includes "treating everybody as Jesus taught." (So Bill isn't really being a Christian according to his "philosophy?") Bill pompously asserted that the Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot didn't believe in God. When Dawkins said that religion can be a force for evil, Bill worked in the requisite anti-Muslim meme with "you can see that in the holy war, jihad."
During the discussion about the origins of existence, Dawkins asked O'Reilly how it helps to "postulate a divine intelligence to explain something complicated like that." O'Reilly then brayed bizarrely about how the teachings of Jesus and Buddha want people to be people to be peaceful and love one another" (oh, the irony). When Dawkins asked how that relates to the origin of the moon, the reverend Bill said - are ya ready for it - "I don't believe that a meteor crashed into the earth and made everything happen. I think intelligent design made everything happen." Dawkins told him that scientists know a lot about the galaxy but they don't know how everything started.
Comment: Bill has been down this road before. When Dawkins (whose "CV" is far more impressive than Bill's) last appeared on the Factor Bill pushed his meme about atheism is inferior to the teachings of Jesus. He also claimed that Jesus was the driving force behind evolution and that teachers who don't teach "intelligent design" are fascists. What Bill doesn't seem to know is that his church says that "ID" is not science and that a major court decision struck down the teaching of "ID" because it's just repackaged creationism which is religious. Bill also doesn't seem to know that many wars were religiously based and Christianity was responsible for the Inquisition and the Crusades. Christianity brought us anti-Semitism which reached a peak in the policies of Christian Nazis. (So much for restraint). But what was funniest about this was Bill's embrace of the commandment about not bearing false witness. OH, THE IRONY! If Dawkins is trying to convince people that believers are idiots, Bill O'Reilly seems to prove his point!
