It seems like the widespread ridicule that O’Reilly got for his ‘argument’ that the tides proved god’s existence has got under his skin. He tries to explain and hilariously exposes his ignorance even more.
So basically god is for those who do not know any science. Glad you cleared that up, Bill!
Haha, yeah Bill does seem to be a wise person (sarcasm) … maybe the takeaway is that nobody should study science so that they keep believing in God?
It’s telling that the YouTube page doesn’t allow commenting.
I find it hard to believe that he really believes this line of reasoning. It would be nice to get an opinion from someone who’s good at reading microcues in body language.
Peter,
I have wondered that myself, whether O’Reilly is putting on a show. He surely cannot be that dense since he does to strike me as being a stupid person.
But I don’t see what he would gain by acting like he was ignorant. Also the desire to believe in god can be very strong so maybe it is genuine.
By the way, did anyone else feel that he looks a lot worse (physically) in this clip than he does on TV? Does the makeup they must be putting on him before his TV appearances really have that much effect?
To be fair to Bill-o (which isn’t something I feel a great need to do), his major error seems to be a fatal ignorance of the anthropic principle. This ignorance is hardly unique to him -- many creationists talk about “the unlikelihood of ‘all this just happening” without understanding that obviously, it has happened at least once, since we’re here to observe it.
I want to start off by saying I do not believe in a god.
That being said, I have real questions about the origins of the universe and our existence in it.
Like Bill, I wonder how it all started. And I think that is why Bill falls back to god. He gets stuck on the prime mover issue.
He said in the video, ‘Yeah the moon causes the tides. But who put the moon there?’
I think Mano has blogged about this before. How believers in god have retreated back to a few points of argument. One of which is a god that created the universe and all that is in it but now exists outside the universe with no interaction with it at all.
RE: Makeup
I last worked in TV before digital HD became common -- in fact, I was at NBC when the first cameras arrived and screen tests commenced. There was much gnashing of teeth, to say the least, since the cameras clearly captured every stray bit of lint and every natural skin wrinkle. So I can’t speak to how things work today, but I can offer a little insight nonetheless.
It’s not just that makeup is used to smooth-out skin texture and ‘blemishes’ (features?). The lighting also is designed to sculpt the face, minimizing shadows. Plus the way the camera works to capture the image is likely very different from the webcam-style in the clip above, whether in frame rate, aperture, white balance, or other factors. I’m not certain on this last point, but I have a hunch.
So I wouldn’t place too much value on how he looks in a YouTube clip.
I have been on TV a couple of times and each time they had some person who did makeup around but they did not do anything to me. Maybe they thought I was hopeless! Or maybe dark skin presents less problems under those strong lights.
I was just curious.
@ Peter -- Why is hard to believe that Bill believes this line of reasoning? Many Americans do. Even Americans who are quite intelligent in areas besides religion/philosophy. I don’t see any particular reason why Bill should be different.
Regarding microcues, there is no evidence of global microcues in humans. Microcues are a complex interaction of many highly variable factors. Anyone who is trying to convince someone otherwise usually has something to sell.