O’Reilly: I’ll tell you why [religion's] not a scam. In my opinion, all right? Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can't explain why the tide goes in...The full interview is posted at YouTube; I listened only long enought to confirm that the extract above was not taken out of context, but couldn't listen to the whole thing because I find both people annoying.
Silverman: Tide goes in, tide goes out...?
O’Reilly: Yeah, see, the water — the tide comes in and it goes out, Mr. Silverman. It always goes in...
Silverman: Maybe it’s Thor up on Mount Olympus who’s making the tides go in and out...
O’Reilly: No no, but you can’t explain that... you can’t explain it...
Via Daily Kos.
*sigh* One more for the 'stop being on my side, you're making my side look stupid' list. Although I suspected he was qualified for that list before now.
ReplyDeleteI was amazed that O'Reilly was so poorly educated that he's unfamilair with the Moon.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised that Silverstein didn't ask O'Reilly if he'd ever heard of the Moon since even ancient humans had made the lunar connection to the tides. I wonder if Silverstein is also poorly educated. I agree that it's hard to listen to his evasions about the intent of his billboards to insult. Insults may indeed get him airtime, but he didn't come prepared to persuade and educate.
Mel V, I was just about to post what you did. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't believe in God as an intervening source, I'm a scientific person, but I agree that both those men are obnoxious. Why do people need to go around and talk about their religious views to other people all the time. Just believe what you want, don't hurt anyone because of it and don't try to convince people that your side is right. No one will ever know if they are right or wrong until they die.
ReplyDeleteBTW I'm sure Silverstein doesn't know about lunar tides and O'Reilly wouldn't understand even if he did.
Most educated people know the moon is responsible for tides, but most people don't know why there are 2 high tides per 24 hour day. The first one is due to the moon, the second one is due to baby Jesus.
ReplyDelete(I'm kidding. I know the second tide is caused by the divergence of moon's gravitation field caused by the finite size of the earth)
Gol' that's depressing. Seriously, people? Thor? Inexplicable? Guhhh...
ReplyDeleteThor was from Asgard wasn't he? Olympus is ancient Greek
ReplyDeleteRight you are, anon #2. The guy may not know science, but clearly doesn't know mythology.
ReplyDeleteMel & Heather, I'm with you. But I have a strong hunch Mr. O'Reilly isn't really, at least based on his (lack of) factual knowledge of the teachings of the man he claims to follow.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Mike, why is it that people who loudly proclaim that they are "Christian" never follow the teachings of the guy they claim to believe in?
ReplyDeleteI sincerely hope this doesn't start another idiotic 'religion vs science' spat in American schools, as evolution has. Parents will send irate letters to the science teachers insisting that moon-controlled tides be taught as "just a theory" and school boards will buy millions of 'theory' stickers to slap into texbooks to placate them...
ReplyDeletethis just makes me want to scream.
ReplyDeletebeing uneducated about the moon is why religion is not a scam?!?!?!
ahhhh! ahhhh! my brain just hurts! i'm a person of faith. i also believe in science. i look to science to explain stuff about the way things work and to try to figure out how to explain stuff we don't understand yet. faith is for stuff about belief and spirit, and not for explaining phenomena i can't yet explain.
suddenly the atmosphere seems ripe for comedy routines about lazy scientists and zealous religious men.
Okay, let me get this straight: Thor does not live on Mount Olympus; nor does he have any control over the oceans; ancient man knew the connections between the Moon and the tides, so both of these guys annoy me, simply because one doesn;t know his ancient mythology or his Norse mythology for that matter, nor does O'Reilly know anything about the tides.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I came across your blog some weeks ago and I've been pretty impressed by all of the articles here. Great job.
All I can say is that anyone that watches Bill O'Reilly regularly isn't watching for the science content. Really.
ReplyDeleteI took Silverstein's reaction to the tides comment as a comic reaction intended to really bring out the insanity of the argument. I think that he didn't follow through because Bill quickly plowed through to a new attack. I also thought the reference to Thor on Olympus was deliberately glued together. O'Reilly missed it entirely.
All I know is that Silverstein's expression when Bill O'Reilly said that makes me lol just thinking about it.
ReplyDelete