Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

Animalia

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I was flipping channels last night and watched as Bill Oreilly gave his "Most Ridiculous Item of the Day" segment. Here's a link scroll all the way to the bottom
Fox News
But it's short so I just copied and pasted:
The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Our pal Andy Rooney (search) making news again. Rooney was called to testify against an agent named Alan Walker, on trial for defrauding some celebrities. When Rooney took the stand, he was sworn in with the words, "So help me God."

Well, Rooney replied, "I don't know about God."

So Mr. Oreilly goes on to say that at Andy's age (I think it is 85 or 86) he should "hedge his bets" about God. And I immediately thought, "so Bill is saying that all any of us have to do is just give lip service to a belief in God and we can still get in heaven. This omnipotent and omniscient God is so easily swayed or fooled by a simple proclamation of belief who needs church, the Bible, or anything?" I just thought that was ridiculous.

Yeah for Andy Rooney, and boo on Oreilly.
 
John 3:16:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever pretends to believe in him shall not perish but have eternal life
 
Well, that makes up for a few of thing that I don't prticularly like about Andy Roney...

And as far as O'Reilly, why does anyone who should know better, watch?
 
O'Reilly recently had this to say about the Pope's funeral.

Now one amazing thing about the pope's funeral is that there was virtually no trouble. Among the millions of people who packed an ancient city, nearly everyone behaved and respected the pope's life.

That is the power of spiritualism. If everybody on the earth lived the way John Paul lived, human conflict would be wiped out.

Here in America, the pope coverage is a big plus for those of us who believe that spiritualism, rather than secularism, should be the dominant philosophy. Baby boomers like myself are really the last generation to be raised in the Judeo Christian tradition that was fostered by the founding fathers. Those who tell you the founders did not want Americans to embrace Judeo Christian philosophy are lying to you.

The founders didn't want any one religion given preference by the new government, but they did want people to behave, because the new federal government was so weak, the founders understood that religious convictions could restrain bad behavior. And the more spiritual people were, the more law abiding they would be. For very practical reasons, the founders wanted public spirituality and encouraged it.

But today, the secular progressives have made deep inroads into the media and the judicial system. The tenet of church state separation has been perverted and used as a hammer against public spirituality.
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What an idiot.
 
Just to follow up, this statement in particular is WAY stupid:

That is the power of spiritualism. If everybody on the earth lived the way John Paul lived, human conflict would be wiped out.
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Guess what, Bill? If everybody on the earth lived the way I, Ipecac, live, human conflict would be wiped out. I don't steal, get in fights, or hurt others. Spirituality has nothing to do with it. I am sure we could find billions of people to whom you could apply that same stupid statement and it would still be true. :hit:
 
Bill O'Reilly is a genius at stupidity. He is ignorance's crowning acheievment.

Good thing he's looking out for us.
 
Whenever I get the notion to just yell at my television set, I watch O'Reilly Factor.
 
The really sad part is that of all the conservative radio hosts played here in St. Louis (i.e. Hannity, Dr. Laura, Savage, Beck, and Snow), O'Reilly is fairest of the bunch. For whatever that is worth.
 
Animalia said:
I was flipping channels last night and watched as Bill Oreilly gave his "Most Ridiculous Item of the Day" segment. Here's a link scroll all the way to the bottom
Fox News
But it's short so I just copied and pasted:
The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day

Our pal Andy Rooney (search) making news again. Rooney was called to testify against an agent named Alan Walker, on trial for defrauding some celebrities. When Rooney took the stand, he was sworn in with the words, "So help me God."

Well, Rooney replied, "I don't know about God."

So Mr. Oreilly goes on to say that at Andy's age (I think it is 85 or 86) he should "hedge his bets" about God. And I immediately thought, "so Bill is saying that all any of us have to do is just give lip service to a belief in God and we can still get in heaven. This omnipotent and omniscient God is so easily swayed or fooled by a simple proclamation of belief who needs church, the Bible, or anything?" I just thought that was ridiculous.

Yeah for Andy Rooney, and boo on Oreilly.
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He didn't happen to mention which God in particular Rooney should hedge his bets about did he? Oh, stupid me, he mean't the REAL God, the one he believes in!
 
crimresearch said:
Nothing new under the sun....

http://www.talkers.com/greatest/21tPyne.htm


http://talkshows.about.com/library/ency/b/bleburke1.htm
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One of my favorite quotes from Joe Pyne's show was when he interviewed Frank Zappa

from Joe Pyne Stuff

He would often start out an interview with an insult to get his targets off-guard and flustered. One of the most famous tales about The Joe Pyne Show involved the wooden leg he earned from service in WWII.


An exchange between Joe and musician Frank Zappa went like this:
Pyne: "So I guess your long hair makes you a woman."
Zappa: "So I guess your wooden leg makes you a table!"



You gotta love Zappa'a wit ....

Charlie (strictly commercial) Monoxide
 
I think O'Reilly is right. If everyone on earth lived like JP2 had lived, all conflict would have been over.

Because there would be no more generations of humanity.

People are really peaceful when they don't exist.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I think O'Reilly is right. If everyone on earth lived like JP2 had lived, all conflict would have been over.

Because there would be no more generations of humanity.

People are really peaceful when they don't exist.
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:D :D :D
 
Animalia said:
So Mr. Oreilly goes on to say that at Andy's age (I think it is 85 or 86) he should "hedge his bets" about God. And I immediately thought, "so Bill is saying that all any of us have to do is just give lip service to a belief in God and we can still get in heaven.
Click to expand...

I remember this line of reasoning from at least 20 years ago when I was a kid in church. I want to say it was some famous (to christians) author (maybe Josh McDowell?) who I first heard state the position.

It went something like this:

if there is a (christian) god and we don't believe in him, we go to hell. If there is no god and we believe in him, we lose nothing, but probably will have lived more moral lives.

Given that nothing bad happens if we believe in a non existent god and very bad things happen if we don't believe in an existent god, the safest choice is to believe in god.

Makes perfect sense except that it is impossible for a person to believe something that they consider unbelievable. It is also an appeal to fear of punishment instead of reason.
 
Re: Re: Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

username said:
I remember this line of reasoning from at least 20 years ago when I was a kid in church. I want to say it was some famous (to christians) author (maybe Josh McDowell?) who I first heard state the position.

It went something like this:

if there is a (christian) god and we don't believe in him, we go to hell. If there is no god and we believe in him, we lose nothing, but probably will have lived more moral lives.

Given that nothing bad happens if we believe in a non existent god and very bad things happen if we don't believe in an existent god, the safest choice is to believe in god.

Makes perfect sense except that it is impossible for a person to believe something that they consider unbelievable. It is also an appeal to fear of punishment instead of reason.
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That line of reasoning goes back a couple hundred years; it's called Pascal's Wager.

The other major flaw is, which God? Just about every Christian denomination holds that it is the "true" denomination, and others will go to hell. That's not even counting other religions altogether! Pascal's Wager is only valid if there are only two possibilities, Christianity and Atheism.
 
Re: Re: Bill Oreilly's Ridiculous

username said:
I remember this line of reasoning from at least 20 years ago when I was a kid in church. I want to say it was some famous (to christians) author (maybe Josh McDowell?) who I first heard state the position.

It went something like this:

if there is a (christian) god and we don't believe in him, we go to hell. If there is no god and we believe in him, we lose nothing, but probably will have lived more moral lives.

Given that nothing bad happens if we believe in a non existent god and very bad things happen if we don't believe in an existent god, the safest choice is to believe in god.

Makes perfect sense except that it is impossible for a person to believe something that they consider unbelievable. It is also an appeal to fear of punishment instead of reason.
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That's a rough restatment of Pascal's Wager.

Pascal, I believe, was living in a world where the choices he was aware of were primarily "Believe in the God of the Catholic Church" and "Disbelieve in the God of the Catholic Church". His wager made sense at the time, it seems to me. Partially because (I believe) under Catholic Doctrine you can get into heaven while doubting God's existence. In his wager, you decided to live as if God exists, or as if God does not. If you decide to live as if God exists, you follow Catholic teaching, go to Mass, get baptized, take communion, confess your sins, and end up in Heaven.

Recent dominance of John 3:16 in the Protestant church and most people's exposure to more than one possible choice of religion have rendered Pascal's wager obsolete for us.

MattJ

Edit to add this link to a page about Blaise Pascal.
 
This thread is reminding of those who say, "If you don't believe in God, you beter be right!"

To which I say, "You too if you do!"

edited to add: If they don't get it, I remind them that they better hope when they die that the Magic Pink Elephant Spirit doesn't resent them for believing in God. Alas, I've only been able to do this whole routine once.
 
Upchurch said:
The really sad part is that of all the conservative radio hosts played here in St. Louis (i.e. Hannity, Dr. Laura, Savage, Beck, and Snow), O'Reilly is fairest of the bunch. For whatever that is worth.
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Aw, dude...now there would be one hell of a talk show...

One hour of O'Reilly, Hannity, Savage and (i wish i were a real doctor)Laura. It would be great because no one would get a word in edge-wise! It'd be like one hour of pure static....
 
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