Friday, November 16, 2007

Bill O'Reilly's Remedial Bible School

It's a good thing there's Bill O'Reilly around to keep an inquiring public educated:

On his radio show, O'Reilly instructed a caller to "go to Revelations in the Bible and look at the prediction for the end of the world," telling him, "It's fascinating, because it does involve the Middle East, and it does involve the clash of cultures." O'Reilly continued: "I'm not trying to convert you to be a Bible-thumper. I'm just saying it's an interesting read. This was written -- what? Five thousand years ago? I mean, this is really interesting."


That must be why they call it the New Testament, because it's five thousand years NEW!

19 comments:

Matthew Hubbard said...

Be fair. Catholics aren't really that big on the Bible study, preferring to get it regurgitated through those clever and maybe tipsy Jesuits.

Lulu Maude said...

There's nothing like a pundit to feign intimate Christian knowledge... Ann Coulter is equally amazing.

Diane Griffin said...

Uh oh. I think you misspelled edumacated.

Anonymous said...

Bill O'Reilly, who likes to harass female employees with dirty phone talk describing how he wants to scub their backs in the shower with a soapy felafel has no business referring anyone to the Bible for revelations.
Like a lot of married, middle-aged white guys with an overblown sense of entitlement, Bill should only be allowed to recommend Viagra, penile implants and remedies for shrinking swollen prostates.

Manila Ryce said...

5,000 years ago? Why that's just 1,000 years after the earth was created!

@matty boy
Admittedly, Catholics might rely more on the hierarchy of Church figures than personal interpretation of the Bible, but that also means we're less prone to believe crazy shit like fundamentalist protestants do. Your local Catholic priest can't just decide to interpret a passage to mean that "God hates fags" or anything similarly against Church teaching because there are other church officials above him (excuse the double entendre).

Anonymous said...

But yer Catholic bishop, cardinal, pope, etc., is not only perfectly free to interpret the Bible creatively (yeah, the ancient Hebrew God made a bunch of rules about abortion and birth control, sure, right), and then disseminate it as received Truth to hundreds of millions of Catholics.

I'll take the Babdist loonies, thanks; they spend most of their time fighting each other over fine points of doctrine, anyway. And despite Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson's delusions of grandeur, right-wing Catholics are far more politically influential. E.g. how many Pentecostals or fundie Baptists are on the Supreme Court?

Anonymous said...

and ppl look at me strange bible thimpers that is when I tell them Im religiously anti orginized religion and john lennon waz right to imagine

Manila Ryce said...

@Mike Billips
I'm no fan of the current pope, but you gotta give credit where it's due. He would destroy Falwell or Robertson in a theological debate, and his interpretation of the Bible is far less "creative" than people who blame gays for hurricanes or call for the assassination of President Chavez to defend capitalism.

Also if right-wing Catholics are Catholics at all they're most likely in disagreement with their party on the free market, the war, and capital punishment. The "religious right" movement started as a fundamentalist protestant movement which was able to pull some Catholics along with clever marketing on the issue of abortion.

As far as Catholic Justices are concerned, their political stance really has more to do with the fact that they were all nominated by Reagan, Bush Sr, and Bush Jr, rather than the fact that they're Catholic. If you want to talk influence, it's worth noting that there are 150 graduates of Pat Robertson's "university" in the Bush administration. One in every six Regent graduates are employed by the government. Though both groups are dangerous, the fundamentalists in the White House have proved to be much more powerful than the judiciary or legislative.

Zeno said...

The New Testament is less than 2000 years old. See? New!

Since it's a compilation of stuff about the development of Christianity, the New Testament was written mostly during the first and second centuries after the birth of Christ. The Common Era calendar tips us off that only a couple thousand years have elapsed.

Just goes to show how clueless Bill O'Reilly is. (As if any further proof were needed.)

Fran said...

Resident Catholic-blogger FranIam weighing in, to add what my man Manila Ryce has begun...

The idiot Catholic O'Reilly probably has never cracked open the book. As has been stated, we are not big Bible readers as a group.

Add to that, actual Catholic theology(which most Catholics are woefully unaware of and which so many priests can ignore) does- again as stated- preclude that whole messy "end-times" business.

Rapture away, I say and leave us alone!

If Bill actually checked in with Biblical scholars of the Catholic variety, he would be told that Revelations was written in code and is therefore largely symbolic.

But Bill is not a big "questions" sort of guy now is he?

Anonymous said...

The Bible was written pre-9/11, so I'm not sure why anyone still thinks it is relevant.

Anonymous said...

Since this book was supposedly written where; about where (need a clue?), why wouldn't the Middle East be mentioned in it?

Anonymous said...

Bill Oreilly - Dikipedia

Matthew Hubbard said...

For anyone keeping score at home, I would say Scioto won this quipfest and as they say in radio telephone contests, please... no more calls.

Thursday said...

How about a homework assignment, then?

May I suggest: A History of the End of the World by Jonathan Kirsch. All about the Revelation of John and its effects.

Lovely stuff!

Anonymous said...

What Bill really wants to know is, what's the Whore of Babylon's position on falafel?


(surely it's not a missionary one)

dguzman said...

I wonder if BillO got any hate mail over this, finally telling him STFU with his idiocy. I bet even the fundies were mad at him.

Anonymous said...

INSTEAD OF HATING BILL O'REILLY, IT'S BETTER TO WITNESS TO HIM AND PROVIDE HIM WITH INFORMATIVE LITERATURE!!!!

AS A MEMBER OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC SYSTEM, BILL O'REILLY WAS NOT AFFORDED A BIBLE EDUCATION!!! HE NEEDS TO KNOW THAT THE ROMAN POPE HAS BEEN EXPOSED AS AN AGENT OF PIAPS!!!!

Anonymous said...

Whenever I see comments all in capital letters, I just skip them....next!