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O’Reilly Suggests Secularism To Blame For Oregon’s UCC Shooting

Posted by Ellen -7859.80pc on October 03, 2015 · Flag

OReilly_UCC.png

Bill O’Reilly neatly ignored the overwhelming evidence showing that the country has an epidemic of gun violence way beyond the epidemic of mass shootings in order to suggest that lack of religion is the real problem.

Vox responded to President Obama’s request that news organizations tally and compare the number of Americans killed by terrorism with the number killed by gun violence (can you guess which has been deadlier?) and went the extra mile with an in-depth articled called, “Gun violence in America, in 17 maps and charts.” The reporting noted that in states with more guns, there are more gun deaths, including deaths of police officers; that in developed countries with more guns there are more gun homicides and that states with tighter gun control laws have fewer gun-related deaths.

But O’Reilly conveniently ignored statistics in order to suggest that lack of religiosity is to blame.

O’Reilly began a Talking Points commentary on the subject by saying that the shooter at Oregon’s Umpqua Communnity College “fits the same patterns as so many others.”

That profile, according to O’Reilly, is a Mama’s boy, a loner who likes guns and Nazi memorabilia, is an admirer of previous killers, has no criminal record, attended a school for special needs children and he was “obviously disturbed.” Also on O’Reilly’s list: “he despised organized religion.”

O’REILLY: These maladjusted people want to kill themselves but instead of doing that, they take innocent people with them because they have no respect for human life and no feelings for anyone but themselves.

…All the guns control laws in the world will not stop maniacs from committing murder.

No, but it might save some lives. When O’Reilly was talking up his anti-immigrant “Kate’s Law” to the mother of murdered Kate Steinle, he said, “If it saves one American, one American family that does not have to go through, Miss Sullivan, what you are going through right now, then Kate’s law is worth it.” Or does O’Reilly think that being murdered by an immigrant is worse than being killed by an American maniac?

In reality, O’Reilly supports some form of gun control. But he never advocates for it in the same way he does Kate’s law. He’ll toss out his ideas under camouflage of attacking liberal positions on guns or let a guest hold forth on the subject without interruption or just hint, e.g.

But O’Reilly will openly advocate religion as a solution.

O’REILLY: As the world becomes more secular, civilized restraints to bad behavior drop. Anything goes if you believe in nothing. Anything goes. It seems the Oregon killer was targeting Christians. That doesn’t surprise me. There is an intense battle between good and evil on this earth right now and good people are becoming targets.

This is not the only time O’Reilly has made such a suggestion. In the wake of the horrible on-air shooting deaths of two WDBJ journalists recently, O’Reilly sneered, "The liberal press reacted in a predictable way, calling for stricter gun laws and more mental health monitoring.” He later said, “Only a society that insists all human life is valuable and a mass media that promotes the message of that will begin to see it turn away from violence. It’s all about the philosophy of loving your neighbor, not the myth that a centralized government can prevent barbaric behavior.”

But the point, as the Vox article makes clear and as O’Reilly is surely smart enough to know, is not to “prevent barbaric behavior.” The point is to prevent untoward harm from such behavior.

Watch O’Reilly do his thing below, from the October 2 The O’Reilly Factor.

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Sandman2 commented 2015-10-05 17:28:02 -0400 · Flag
Well said @fred LePiere
Fred LePiere commented 2015-10-04 13:37:18 -0400 · Flag
Secularism/Atheism/Agnosticism means one does not have a belief in supernatural being. Period. It does not mean that a person who has no belief in a deity also has no ethics, morals, standards and most importantly empathy. Empathy, morals and ethics are not dependent of religiosity. These traits exist completely independent of religion. They are observable in the animal kingdom and have existed long before Christianity was invented. These behavioral characteristics also span the globe – across cultures and predate all the religions of earth. Christianity and other religions have no ownership of empathy, ethics and morals. Being secular is not equivalent with “believing in nothing” as the uninformed O’Reilly postulates. The idea that “anything goes if you believe in nothing” is a logical fallacy that Bill pulled straight out of Bill O’Reilly’s dark place. If secularism leads to or is a factor of violence, Tori Smith – another empty claim which you pulled out of your own dark place, one would expect to see our prisons filled with the faithless. It is just the opposite. The proportion of faithless criminals jailed is only 0.07% of the general prison population while those who identify as no religion in the US population is around 23% or 24%. The remaining 99.93 percent of inmates are religious. There is a strong disproportional under representation of the faithless in jail. The word Islam simply means the Islamic faith and Muslim means those who follow that faith. Neither word means peace. The Quran has at least 109 verses that clearly tell the faithful that they should kill others for a wide variety of imaginary crimes and the accompanying text to Islam, the Hadith, has many, many more. Islam is not on equal footings with other religions because of the very proliferation of instructions to kill.
Nick Zetton commented 2015-10-04 10:36:28 -0400 · Flag
Bill O’Reilly is a very, very stupid man. He is incredibly dumb and extremely angry. When one thinks of Bill O’Reilly the world “dumbass” can’t help but come to mind. Once again, this angry imbecile unleashes a veritable tsunami of stupid, this time blaming another mass shooting — not on our moronic gun policies or just another episode in our ongoing series of monthly random acts of violence by an insane person, but on (lol) “secularism”. Hahahahaha! Good one, Bill. Hilarious. Do you go on air liquored the hell up every night? Because such dimwitted insights sound extremely similar to the incoherent ramblings of the town drunkard. Or is this some kind of performance art? Could it be a kind of sly form of entertainment that works on two levels like the old 60’s Batman series — little kids wondering how the caped crusader is going to free himself from the “human knot” as the adults in the room laugh their asses off? Nah. I think you’re just a loudmouth dope who happens to have a TV show. O’Reilly represents the lowest common denominator of political and social commentary. Play us out, Bill O’Reilly. Play us out, angry idiot.
Tori Smith commented 2015-10-04 10:36:10 -0400 · Flag
Perhaps I agree with O’Reilly. I think it is true that secularism leads to violence, if not then it is definitely a factor. For all of you, who think this is a foolish article, and look at Islam as evidence that it does cause violence, I urge you to really study the prophecy of the religion. Muslim/Islam means “peace.”
Sister Chromatid commented 2015-10-03 22:06:21 -0400 · Flag
Australia and other societies that are more secular than the US have far less gun violence— https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OZIOE6aMBk&list=RD7OZIOE6aMBk
Lakeview Greg commented 2015-10-03 12:29:12 -0400 · Flag
He should drag himself down the stairs.
Anne-claire Souza commented 2015-10-03 10:35:10 -0400 · Flag
I am sooo tired of this clown.
NewsHounds posted about O’Reilly Suggests Secularism To Blame For Oregon’s UCC Shooting on NewsHounds' Facebook page 2015-10-03 10:30:11 -0400
In reality, O'Reilly supports some gun control measures. But he doesn't like to talk about it.








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