Aint No Right

There aren't many people I really dislike, but Mr. O'Reilly is definitely in my top 10. I don't know why I watch him on youTube, but every time I do, it re-affirms my opinion that he is a complete obnoxious arse hole.

You have to realize that people like him and in his position rarely speak their true minds. They may mean some of what they say, but they ultimately say what is necessary to generate discussion/controversy and ratings. As evidenced by this thread, O'Reilly is really good at what he does.

Nice old clip. Hoka's probably right -- the way that O'Reilly comes across there is that he's smarter than he lets on... and he knows the character he plays on TV (an exaggerated version of who he probably really is) is supposed to hold to a certain line and act in a certain way, and he sees Dawkins thwarting that rather easily, and so has no recourse but to say "Yeah, but I'm still down with the J-man." Because that's who watches his show.

Not to switch the subject, but I actually think people like Mos Def are more insidious and dangerous than the O'Reillys of the world, see:


The problem there isn't necessarily the left-liberal viewpoint he takes, but that he takes it in roughly the same way that Bill O'Reilly takes conservative side, except that he has faux-credibility and no one can tell the difference between his reasoning and good reasoning -- and this is damaging to the Left, on whose side reality generally falls.

Being an exaggerated version of what he is to me is irrelevant. He's good at what he does? What's he doing? He's not a comedian, so if it's a "ratings" thing he's doing, a certain aspect of American television really is going (gone) down the toilet. Do people actually like, believe?, what Bill O'Reilly stands for? It's almost as if he's Dr. Contradictory with every guest he has on his show. He's obviously got a large audience so some must like the fact that he's winding guests up and some must actually believe all that he stands for, which is kind of worrying; especially when he has guests on who really are actually far more intelligent than he is, ie Richard Dawkins. The fact that O'Reilly thinks Jesus is God is rather puzzling and odd to say the least. At least read the fucking 'story' correctly.

It's funny, because over here we've no one like him really. We have idiot talk show hosts, but as far as program's concerning current affairs, I would say most, if not all, are impartial.

http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/

According to the latest results from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll,
some news sources make us less likely to know what’s going on in the world. In the
most recent study, the poll asked New Jerseyans about current events at home and
abroad, and from what sources – if any – they get their information. The conclusion:
Sunday morning news shows do the most to help people learn about current events,
while some outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than
those who say they don’t watch any news at all.

According to Wikipedia, his salary is $20m

Bandit72 wrote:The fact that O'Reilly thinks Jesus is God is rather puzzling and odd to say the least. At least read the fucking 'story' correctly.

What? Why do you think that's an incorrect reading of the story? Do you even understand what Christianity is? They think the dude *is* God... If anything, you'd be the one with the heretical interpretation, if you don't think that.

Adurentibus Spina wrote:

Bandit72 wrote:The fact that O'Reilly thinks Jesus is God is rather puzzling and odd to say the least. At least read the fucking 'story' correctly.

What? Why do you think that's an incorrect reading of the story? Do you even understand what Christianity is? They think the dude *is* God... If anything, you'd be the one with the heretical interpretation, if you don't think that.

I was always under the impression he was the son of God, according to the bible. No?

Bandit72 wrote:
I was always under the impression he was the son of God, according to the bible. No?

The Trinity is the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - they are all one God. (Mormons, however, believe in three separate gods.)

So they are all three distinct persons but all one God?

Yes, you have to stack them on top of each other, then they are god. On their own thay are each 1/3 god. Its like 3 transformers that get put together to make 1 big transformer.

i was thinking club sandwich.

I frequently worship at the altar of the club sandwich myself.

The triune God thing is not the most fucked up part about Christian metaphysics. In fact, it's probably the least fucked up part. Bill Maher was taken aback when one guy he was talking to said "Yeah, like how water can exist in three different states: solid, liquid, and gas." (and plasma... but never mind). But, in fact, yes, there's nothing incoherent about three persons existing in one thing (or body). Humans with severed corpus callosums ("split-brain" patients) have been found to have two distinct personalities (which leads researchers to speculate that at the very least, the hemispheres of ordinary folk have such things too, it's just that in non-damaged brains, only one wins out on any given occassion, due to the cross-talk between them which has been removed in the split-brain patients. And as far as it being scripturally accurate, the identification of Jesus, or the Messiah, with God has to do with the prophetic stuff from the Old Testament... and some interpretation of what that says. E.g.,

Isaiah 48:16 wrote:Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.

But at any rate, far worse is the belief in the supernatural in the first place, and that the universe needs a personality for it to make sense to us. That's just flat out insane (imagining people where there are none, and not noticing how nonsensical that is... is pretty well a good definition of 'delusional...)

Bandit72 wrote:So they are all three distinct persons but all one God?

The Trinity - yes.

Keep in mind that Unitarians believe in one God but reject the Trinity. That is they may believe in the Son, but they do not think that he is God.

For the most part the majority of Christians believe in one God embodied in the Trinity; however, there are a few denominations that fall under the umbrella of "Christian" who believe in one God but reject the Trinity.

do religious people ever question why there are so many interpretations of the bible?

my favorite bill o'reilly clip ever

creep wrote:do religious people ever question why there are so many interpretations of the bible?

Lutherans and Anglicans generally assume that plurality is a virtue.

Maybe this helps:

Matthew 28:16-20 wrote:16Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

That's pretty blatant scriptural "evidence" for the trinity.

You seem to be very au fait with the Bible

Bandit72 wrote:You seem to be very au fait with the Bible

I'm a heretic atheist (Spinozist) philosopher. I abide by the dictum made famous by one de la Rocha: "Know your enemy." (Otherwise known as Kafka's maxim: "Only read things you disagree with.")

Adurentibus Spina wrote:

Bandit72 wrote:You seem to be very au fait with the Bible

I'm a heretic atheist (Spinozist) philosopher. I abide by the dictum made famous by one de la Rocha: "Know your enemy." (Otherwise known as Kafka's maxim: "Only read things you disagree with.")

I largely agree with this however you must have/have had a lot of time on your hands to analyse the bible

Bandit72 wrote:

Adurentibus Spina wrote:

Bandit72 wrote:You seem to be very au fait with the Bible

I'm a heretic atheist (Spinozist) philosopher. I abide by the dictum made famous by one de la Rocha: "Know your enemy." (Otherwise known as Kafka's maxim: "Only read things you disagree with.")

I largely agree with this however you must have/have had a lot of time on your hands to analyse the bible

I was a precocious reader. I read the entire stupid thing when I was 9, and then chose to go to a Catholic high school, out of curiosity, wherein the 'know your enemy' thought took on a much more 'live' role than it had before. (In retrospect, going to a public high school would have been much better in many ways... ), so I re-read it then. The sheer volume of hypocrisy there is one of the things that solidified my anti-religious/anti-theistic views. I also tend not to be able to forget things I've read. It's a great thing, except that I think it came at the expense of remembering names and faces of people I meet.

Spinoza also wrote one of the first works of biblical criticism, the Theological Political Treatise, which I have read many times over, so there's that. It's a highly readable book, if you're ever interested and have some time.

I may just read that, cheers for the heads up. I went to a church of England primary school, and we didn't get any kind of religion rammed down our throats. Just the usual Christmas nativity and harvest festivals at Easter. And at that age I didn't really think anything of it. Secondary school I did two years of religious education and had finished that by the time I was 13/14. It's funny, I only ever used to read fiction when I was younger, now I only read factual books. I can't remember the last time I read a work of fiction. Probably four or five years ago. I appreciate there are great authors and novels ou there, but I think the older I'm getting the more I want to learn.