Bill O’Reilly: Christianity is not a religion, but a philosophy

December 5, 2012 • 9:54 am

Bill O’Reilly, an infarction waiting to happen, was arguing with David Silverman, president of American Atheists, about the secular “War on Christmas.” In a moronic attempt to defend himself, O’Reilly claimed that Christiantiy is not a religion but a philosophy. (He does admit, though, that Roman Catholicism and Judaism are religions!)  O’Reilly’s stupid statement is embedded in this clip from the David Parkman show, and Parkman comments, “Since when do we give federal holidays for philosophies?”

Too, if O’Reilly is right, the government should immediately remove all tax exemptions for Christian churches.

h/t: Haggis

99 thoughts on “Bill O’Reilly: Christianity is not a religion, but a philosophy”

        1. Exactly. The equation is the same as it is for all suspected idiots. Either

          A – he is truly an idiot; or
          B – he thinks it is advantageous to pretend to be an idiot.

          I’m never sure which is worse. What I am sure is that it doesn’t matter. It walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck. One of the wisest things my father ever told me was “Pay attention when people tell you who they are.”

          1. I think Ben’s point was that even if he’s playing to his demographic, you can still legitimately describe him as an idiot for helping perpetuate large-scale idiocy, by prioritizing his ego and his bank account ahead of what would be best for humanity, however bold and fresh it may be.

        2. But there are so many self-proclaimed ‘wise men’ in the US and around the World who do make massive idiots out of very large swathes of the population, and who make a very good living out of it, too, especially as they claim tax exemption, which makes idiots out of the Government.

      1. It’s frightening the amount of bollocks that man can talk when he’s not playing defensive. I don’t think it’s healthy for viewers to hear those kinds of thoughts, I would rather have children grow up watching horror and gangster films than O’Reilly’s show.

          2. Ah. You must be one of those reasonably decent, not lazy about keeping themselves informed, human beings. Thank Dog! Please, breed. But no more than two!

            I am not typically violent, and I would never really do it, but BO is such a despicable, smarmy, lying little twit that I often have a strong desire to punch him right in the nose whenever I see that nasty little smirk he so often sports, on his face. I think it is an indicator of how messed up society is that poisonous parasites like BO are able to flourish. In the society I would like to inhabit the likes of BO would never be able to prosper because the large majority of attention they would garner would be ridicule.

  3. Why do some Christians overreact(apparently declaring war)when they are no longer able to enforce their religion or hold a special privilege over others?

    I think David should be a regular on Billy’s show, the show always goes viral. Even us simple English folk know of Billy because of David Silverman.

  5. I don’t think this is an attempt by Christians as a whole to get Christianity into federal policies, as when he had Fr. Jonathan Morris on (Fox’s go-to priest), he corrected O’Reilly & said that it is a religion. Perhaps it is Fox News’ attempt to spin it this way, or maybe just O’Reilly himself. Whoever came up with the notion, I bet they were congratulating themselves at such clever word play (or so they thought).

    [Source ]

  6. He could have asked George Carlin.

    Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree.”

    1. My favourite I have heard is “Christianity is not a religion, it’s a relationship with god.” I tried to be respectful but the smirk started to hurt, I had to laugh, it was like watching a puppy fall down some steps.

      1. I try and avoid having a mouthful of coffee (tea, wine beer, whatever) when listening to Christians (Muslims, Jews) talk about this kind of thing.

          1. >>They’ve never said anything I wanted to hear.

            Hmmm. That sounds like something Christians say about scientists.

        2. Even better than the comment I saw a week or two ago, “Atheism isn’t a religion; it’s a conclusion.”

  8. Bill might have a point if he looked at the bible without it being a product of God. There is one word that magically changes Christianity and other religions into something more than a philosophy and that is the word divinity. Divinity gives meaningless words meaning causing all the problems associated with religion. Once we are able to look at religion without seeing a God produced ideology, we may be able to discern some positive philosophical wisdom . I remember reading a book on the Kabbalah and as an atheist , I found much of it rubbish but there is definitely moral values and interesting perspectives one can gleam from reading it from a non divine perspective.

  9. You may be interested to know (or not) that Marco Rubio (R-Knucklehead) who only recently did not know how old the earth was (“I’m not a scientist, man!”) has reversed himself, according to the Huffington Post:

    “There is no scientific debate on the age of the Earth, it’s established pretty definitively, it’s at least 4.5 billion years old,” he [Marco Rubio] told Politico’s Mike Allen at a Playbook breakfast Wednesday. “I was referring to a theological debate.”

    Apparently, when Rubio (R-Dumbass) was reconsidering his presidential prospects for 2016, he concluded that saying stupid things to pander to his base was probably not going to win him enough votes in the long-run to make the pandering worthwhile.

    Apologies for the the thread derail.

    1. You call it thread derailment, I call it “getting important news to people who don’t read the news”. Namely, viz, and to wit, another symptom that the GOP is starting to have an allergic reaction to the Tea Party and expel them.

      [First symptom, a reported purge of radical rightists from Congressional committees.]

    2. ““There is no scientific debate on the age of the Earth, it’s established pretty definitively, it’s at least 4.5 billion years old,” he [Marco Rubio] told Politico’s Mike Allen at a Playbook breakfast Wednesday. “I was referring to a theological debate.”

      Hasn’t Rubio (R-Twitville) just admitted here that there is a yawning chasm between science and religion?

      Why isn’t his retraction national news? (Wait, I already know the answer to that one.)

      And when will Nicholas Wade weigh-in again… did some brilliant diplomat email Marco Rubio (R-Dorktown) and tell him that Evolution was “just” a theory?

  10. Philosophies don’t have holidays. Non-Christians only object to the religious aspects of Christmas on public property.

    Businesses don’t want to offend religions who are also celebrating their own holidays. Fox calls this a war on Christmas.

    Thanksgiving is the day with give thanks for everything we have. Black Friday is the day we punch people in the face for everything we don’t have. Now we have Black Thursday. That’s Christmas declaring war on Thanksgiving. My second and third favorite radio stations went to Christmas carols 24/7 the day after Election Day. Christmas is the aggressor. We need to fight Christmas in November and December so we don’t have to fight it all year long.

    2. Not entirely true, in Taiwan they have a national holiday for Confucius Day. We also have Labour Day in Australia (and the US??).

  11. I think o’reilly meant Christianity was a philosophy and the different denominations are religions. Although, if that were true, non-denominational churches at least should lose tax exempt status.

    1. Actually he did go through a brief phase of saying sensible things after the GFC. He was very anti-bank and big finance for a while. I thought he made sense more or less.

        1. The longer his show’s gone on, the less sensible he’s become because he (and the rest of FAUXNoise) has discovered that the only accountability they have is to advertisers, so as long as they don’t offend those (Glenn Beck’s fatal mistake), they can say whatever pops into their rather small minds.

  13. I thought David handled himself very well in that segment. He had a good, quick response to most of O’Reilly’s nonsense.

    I understand his almost ‘deer in the headlights’ moment previously when O’Reilly gave his infamous ‘Tides go in, tides go out…’ comment. I felt he really should have jumped on that rather than leaving it hanging, despite it being way out there. I guess he was expecting some bizarre claims this time, and prepared to deal with them.

  15. As someone who has a great affinity for the field of philosophy (I minored in it because I enjoyed the application of logic to things such as morality, where science and math – my major – could do little benefit), I fully support the idea of reclassifying Christianity as a philosophy. As stated, this would remove its tax-exempt status (and we all know that would help ease the tax burden on individuals), and it would also open it up to further logical ridicule. If it’s a philosophy and its beliefs and “proofs” are bound by the rules of the field, then all of the deconstructions of said “proofs” must be considered. I think it would be a short-lived philosophy, despite its success as a religion.

    Side-note: I really enjoyed studying the various philosophers who tore apart “proofs” of god’s existence presented by various theologians. Perhaps the new philosophers, formerly called “Christians,” would enjoy studying them, too.

  16. His claim is that the individual denominations of Christianity are religions, while Christianity itself is a philosophy. Thus, he saves the churches from losing their tax-exempt status, while allowing “philosophical” displays at Christmas.

    Arguably, Labor Day, Memorial Day, and Veteran’s day are all holidays in honour of philosophies.

    1. O’Reilly may indeed win with an argument that Christmas is secular — though it’s a hollow victory indeed, since that approach has to take the Christ out of Christmas. That’s not a win. It’s a concession to the non-religious.

      So maybe he’s forestalling that defeat by trying to first establish that no, Christ and Christianity are secular, too. They’re philosophies, not religion. So Christmas is secular even if it IS promoted as being about the birth of Jesus.

      That’s not a win either, because it’s just too obviously “tricksy” — and wrong.

      1. He’s entirely wrong, of course! i was just responding to the comments upthread which ask for the revocation of tax-exempt status and question the idea of public holidays for philosophy. If the various denominations are religious followers of a philosophy (so wrong), then they are still religions and thereby still tax exempt.

        Of course, religions should not be considered to be ipso facto charities, and so should lose their status anyway.

  17. Someday O’Reilly may regret his buffoonery. Most people, except die-hard radical Conservatives, think he is a clown who unwittingly does the nation much harm by encouraging religious and Tea Party radicals. O’Reilly is the epitome of arrogance. Because he is unaware of the disrespectful way he treats guests whenever they question his ideas, he shows symptoms of being a sociopath. When his flaws are pointed out and his theories debunked, his insecurity blossomed into utter uncontrollable rage. I’m sure those who work for him are motivated by money, and not respect or loyalty.

  20. Karl Barth, who is arguably the most prominent reformed theologian of the 20th century, says much the same thing: that Christianity is NOT a religion, but that Judaism, Islam, Shintoism etc etc etc ARE all religions. Barth sees the difference as lying in the philosophical notion that ‘religion’ is essentially man-made attempts in humanity’s search for God, whereas Christianity is fundamentally the opposite: God’s outreach to humanity.

    1. That point of view studiously ignores the mountains of evidence that Christianity is entirely a man-made phenomenon.

          1. True…just trying to argue within their own terms. Even according their own book, it can’t be said that Judaism is a man made religion while Christianity is God reaching out. The distinction is false.

          2. Apologies, from the position of your reply it looked like you were contradicting RFW’s statement rather than what Claudia was referring to. Perhaps if I’d read your comment more carefully I’d have noticed that without you needing to point it out!

    2. Then Barth is an idiot. All he is doing is repackaging the idea that Christianity is the only TRUE religion. It is intellectually dishonest.

    3. Barth sees the difference as lying in the philosophical notion that ‘religion’ is essentially man-made attempts in humanity’s search for God, whereas Christianity is fundamentally the opposite: God’s outreach to humanity.

      And the evidence for this is what? Nothing.

      This is an assertion without proof or data and can be dismissed without proof or data.

      BTW, all the other religions say the exact same thing.

      1. According to Moslems, everyone is born Moslem. Then those awful parents interfere and brainwash their kids.

      And the Koran wasn’t written by Mohammed. It was dictated by god.

      2. According to Buddhists, Buddhism is just a true picture of what they world really is without those illusions people call reality.

  22. Sure, Christianity is a philosophy: it’s a religious philosophy. Which makes it a religion.

    And then O’Reilly confuses “religious sect” with “religion.” He’s undoubtedly trying to make points, most of them political. Slide “Christianity” into common ground as a rational secular philosophy and then push it into government. It’s truth.

    1. And then O’Reilly confuses “religious sect” with “religion.”

      this is the key to attack this position on.

      play devil’s advocate on the umbrella “philosophy”, but then force Oreilly to define then, how each SECT of that philosophy classifies as a specific religion under US law.

  23. As an engineer I prefer models and trial runs. Perhaps a logician can help me with this.

    a. Christianity is not a religion.
    b. RCC is a religion
    c. Therefore, RCC is not Christian?

    What am I missing… and is it enough to get a talk show?

      1. What I neglected to say is that I have a baptist acquaintance who also says the RCC is not a Christian religion, but that the Baptists are the only true Christians because they trace their origins to John the Baptist, not Jesus execution.

        I need to find a quad pad (I know I still have one somewhere) so I can diagram this… 😉

  24. Catholics and Protestants are not co-religionists. There is no “superset” religion of Christianity that subsumes them both. For one thing, how would this entity be identified?

    Presumably O’Reilly’s argument, however flawed its terms may be, is that the establishment clause is to be interpreted along the lines of the political history of Britain, in which country is established “the Protestant religion”.

    Christmas being a holiday that is common to both the Catholic and the Protestant religions, neither is established if a tree is erected on government property.

    1. Catholics and Protestants are not co-religionists.

      In anything eve vaguely resembling an ecumenical setting, Christians will disagree with you. This is especially the case with public prayers and the like.

      b&

    2. With this argument in hand, you will then have to proceed to define each and ever sect as a specific, identifiable religion for legal purposes within the US legal code.

      you have a lot of work to do.

      moreover, you will have to tell both protestants and catholics they are not christians, but rather just members of distinct religious sects.

      again, good luck with that.

      1. …oh crap, protestantism is a philosophy too.

        I guess you’ll have to work it even lower down than that.

      2. Kevin, late to the party, but natheless…

        Catholics and Protestants are not co-religionists. There is no “superset” religion of Christianity that subsumes them both. For one thing, how would this entity be identified?

        They are co-religionists in the sense that they define themselves in relation to the Christ; and not with reference to, say, Quetzlcoatl.

        There is, and was, a ‘superset’ of Christianity subsuming the Marcionites, the Docetists, the Patripassianists, Adoptionists, Separationists, Gnostics, Arians, any ‘heresy’ you wish to mention, all of whom would describe themselves as Christian.

        This Christian entity – Catholic, Protestant, Coptic, Armenian, Orthodox etc. – is identified as engaging in a theological conversation with its Holy Scriptures, and not with the Japanese God of Kitchen Ranges. The texts which they seek to interpret constitute their co-religiosity, and we use those pericopes as the means by which we identify them as ‘Christians’.

  26. Looks like religion has gotten a bad name.

    As many have pointed out, the religionists have started to outright deny they believe in a…religion.

    Blame the fundies, creationists, and Catholics for that, among others.

    1. As many have pointed out, the religionists have started to outright deny they believe in a…religion.

      I’d almost believe that by some miracle, the rationalists had won a small technical victory.

      because if religions deny that they are… religions, then of course there is no longer any need to include religions as a category under 501(c)(3).

      just think of the tax cuts that will enable for the rich!

      the GoP should be jumping all over this opportunity to cut the budget and retain their beloved tax cuts.

  27. “Christianity is not a religion.” I’ve encountered this retarded (or is it “special”) argument before. Does BO (what appropriate initials!) look for a book on Christianity in the “Religion” or “Philosophy” sections of a library or bookshop? When Christians are asked if they are religious, do they reply “No, but I am very philosophical.”? And as Dr Coyne pointed out, how can Roman Catholicism be a religion but Christianity a philosophy?
    However, this argument comes from the same guy who didn’t know what causes the tides, as Ben Goren pointed out above. It was good to see Neil Degrasse Tyson rip BO (there are those initials again) a new one about that (see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5dSyT50Cs8).
    Finally, when people – particularly Christians, claim that Christianity is not a religion, they are tacitly admitting that religion is a bad thing. If only they could see that…

      1. I was merely saying that BO are appropriate initials for Bill O’Reilly, I was not suggesting that everyone with the same initials are stinkers of his caliber.

  28. ¿Is the inclusion of supernatural elements in a system of thought a necessary and sufficient condition for that system to be “a religion”?

  29. Philosophy can thought provoking and even fun. It can even potentially invoke scientific inquiry.
    But it is what it is, always, has been and always will be i.e. a thought excercise that cannot actually prove anything as true or not.
    Hence, that makes Christianity a thought excercise which is what we knew all along but it’s nice to hear as much from O’Reilly’s own mouth.

  31. why, he is right – literally.
    An old way to classify thought systems is to distinguish between deontological philosopies (a.k.a duty ethics) and utilitarian ones, more modern name consequentialism.
    Religion(s) are members of the duty ethics group, a subgroup where the individual having set values is said to be immortal and invisible, not a (historical) philosopher.
    Some atheists tried to come up with something resembling this pattern (Paul Kurtz, Max Stirner, Nietzsche…), while most of us use our brains trying to form (good) habits while every now and then having to reevaluate facts and assumptions of causal connections between them, and having to endure quite a bit of insecurity because of only statistical, not exactly causal relations among many facts.

    Of course comment 14 was right: thinking for yourself does not give you tax exemptions;
    AND our faithhead did not grasp the concept and would never accept consequences if he did.
    But it is nice that hot air sometimes does have consequences.

  32. O’Reilly bares his ass, of course. But it isn’t much of a concession, seeing how akin philosophy and theology works. =D

    The large irony here though is that BO around here is deemed a fascist. Not in the small sense that he tries to capture Yule as a specific church festival. But in the large sense that he tries to capture the US state to obey a specific church’s rules as a de facto theocracy.

  34. Bill O’Reilly has long been in the amusing position of being the Ebenezer Scrooge of !*keeping*! Christmas, crying “Bah, humbug” and any attempt to limit Christmas to the private sector where it belongs.

    However, this borders (both “religion” and “fascism”) in redefining words in an Orwellian “Newspeak” fashion.

  35. I’m not sure about the motive, but the punditry of the right seem to have picked up on this “Christianity as philosophy” meme like a school of fish. I just heard Glenn Beck claim the same thing on the radio.

  36. I am a strident fiscal conservative, and I agree with O Reilly on many of his conservative points.

    But the idea that Christianity is not a religion is completely without merit.

    Most Americans are born and bred on 2000 years of Judeo-Christian values. I am also. I am proud of that.

    But I am also an athiest.

    Mangers and crucifixes on public property obviously promote the idea of Christianity as a religion.

    Jesus Christ presented in these ways on public property OBVIOUSLY promote Christianity as a religion, not just a philosophy.

    The philosophies that espouse American values are represented by the Constitution and The Declaration of Independence.

    Christianity has formidable place in American values… on Private property.

    Please, Jesus was the preminent western philosopher of the last 2000 years.

    But adding Christ to it puts the argument into the realm of religion. Christ means the Messiah, the savior who is sent to save Gods chosen people. If that isn’t religion, then what is?

    1. Craig,

      This is very funny. It’s nearly the first anniversary of Christopher Hitchens’ death. I can imagine you offering this series of semi-coherent opinions to him in the Q and A session. And CH looking quizzically at the Chairman and responding, “Can we agree to take that as a statement?”

      To take a substantive point: evidence for God? Don’t tell me that you ‘know’, because that ain’t good enough. Who are the chosen people? How do you know that he chose them? And why don’t I? OK, scripture says that He chose the Jews. How does that relate to Americans? And why were the English God’s chosen people in the 1600’s. Has God changed his mind at least three times? If so, why? And how does that relate to His omniscience?

      Please stick around; I think you’ll find that WEIT people know and understand a lot more about religion than you think. In other words, I think that I and many others could disabuse you of your delusions.

      1. Wow Dermot.

        Did you even read my post?

        I’m an athiest. I don’t believe in God.

        I never said anything about evidence of God. I don’t believe in God.

        I think you are on my side, actually, based on the summary of your post.

        Did you consciously respond to my post? Or is your response some type of auto response that picks up on a few phrases and pumps out a retort?

        I am dumbfounded by your reply. It seems to have nothing to do with what I wrote.

        1. Sorry, Craig, I broke the habit of a lifetime by reading some of your post as satiric rather than a literal representation of your ideas, specifically the Judeo-Christian stuff, and your idea that you are proud, as an American to be raised within such a culture. I therefore assumed that you were winding people up. Mea culpa.

          Natheless, I continue to find your embracing of Judeo-Christian culture bewildering (the J bit being mysogynistic, genocidal and inherently authoritarian, the C bit being slavish, thanaphile and body-hating). To accept Christian values would be rather like following the moral prescriptions of the mad survivalist in ‘Tremors’ after the creature has been killed. As with the Jesus movement, the End Times didn’t come; why therefore view Jesus’ values as anything but a historical question?

    2. I would take issue with your characterisation of any of our societal norms being based on Judeo-Christian values. If we are to believe that, that we’d have to hold that child sacrifice, murder (characterised as legitimate killing), killing witches, genocide are acceptable under certain circumstances (have you heard William Lane Craig’s rationalisation of this?)

      Even the NT, although slightly toned down, still contains some horrific edicts

      e.g. “Women should be silent during the church meetings. It is not proper for them to speak. They should be submissive, just as the law says”

      or “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”

      Nowhere does it condemn slavery but in one passage Paul instructs slaves to obey their masters.

      These are Judeo-Christians values. They aren’t mine, and I’m sure they aren’t yours. I think Christians have done a fantastic spin-job of characterising pre-Christians as essentially immoral. Absolute nonsense of course. People behaved well or badly before it’s rise, and continued to behave the same afterwards.

  37. Thanks Dermot and Griff for putting forth reasoned, non venomous responses.

    I am in now way protecting or justifying Christian values.

    My parents never spoke about Christianity to me. They aren’t religious people in any sense. God, Religion, Christianity, the (supposed) afterlife never made an appearance in my upbringing.

    They just subtley taught me to be the best person I can be, to not hurt anyone, to try to be honest, etc, etc.

    Needless to say I’ve failed many times in my life. They failed in their own lives. But there was never an overt morality espoused. It was just a tacit understanding.

    I give some credit to Judeo-Christian philosophy just because it seems historically accurate in the wake of Western European civilization. I’m not waving a flag.

    Man is an animal. Animals have eaten and beaten their own since life began. The trend will continue because it is afterall survival of the fittest. Anyone who exclaims otherwise is surely a con artist, bent on issuing false promises and stealing your heart and soul in the end.

    1. Survival can require co-operation and well as competition. I’m convinced out “morality” is just our way of encoding those behaviours which benefit the group (which also benefits the individual)

Comments are closed.