Bill O'Reilly is mad at God. Huh. I'll bet a lot of women are mad at God for Bill O'Reilly.

[thewayne]

"Am I mad at God? Yeah, I'm mad at him. I wish I had more protection. I wish this stuff didn't happen... These people at the New York Times... don't want me in the marketplace. That's what this is all about."
—Bill O'Reilly, in wake of report on $32M settlement with Fox News colleague re sexual misconduct accusation

Somehow I don't think God is too happy at you, either. No hint of personal responsibility for what he did: had he not done it, it wouldn't have happened. I think the worst part was hearing about the raise from the Murdochs after the $32M settlement when his contract was renewed.

Comments

[elf]

"I wish this stuff didn't happen"... yeah, well, so do I, but I suspect he and I have different definitions of "this stuff."

I am fascinated by the "mad at God" idea - it hadn't clicked in my that conservative "Christians" could completely ignore their own theology to that extent. A devout person might be mad at Satan for having mistreated him; mad at God implies that God owes him, personally, a comfortable and fun life. And while I did know they believed that, I don't think I'd heard any of them get that direct about it before.

[thewayne]

Keep in mind that these are very special snowflake Christians: most of these are Prosperity Gospel believers. Since they are rich, they are Very Special and Blessed (I just now noticed your icon: wonderful!) So I can sort of see his angle, it just doesn't remotely correspond to what I know of the Bible and Christianity.

As Churchill said, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." Christianity was always 'treasures laid up in heaven', but the prosperity gospel says 'if you're rich, good for you! Revel in it!'

I would have thought that Bill, being of good Irish stock, would have been Catholic, and that's what his Wikipedia page indicates, including his wedding. (And Catholics are Christians) But his attitude definitely says Prosperity Gospel Christian Evangelical to me.

[moonhare]

The world of misery we live in, so many 'unprotected' people, and he thinks his God should be personally protecting him from the Times? Sheeesh.

[thewayne]

But... he's rich and famous!  He's supposed to get a special God and special protections!  Isn't he? Yeah, what a tool.

[silveradept]

He's mad at a God that should be protecting his divine message to the people, instead of allowing those Satanic liberals to smear him sufficiently that he had to leave his nationwide parish.

Even though there are plenty of stories in the books about people supposedly favored by the Deity who end up without anything material.

The best thing he could probably do is think of himself as Job, or Jonah, and suffer well before going to where he's meant to go to do his prophetic work.

Instead, he's likely to think of all had material wealth he lost because some women had the audacity to refuse his Godly authority.

[thewayne]

That's about the size of it: I am rich and powerful and all should worship me/have sex with me.... wait.... why am I being sued? I'm amazed his wife is still with him.  Oh, never mind, they divorced and their daughter testified to a forensic examiner that she witnessed him dragging her mother down the stairs by her neck.  What a sweetheart ol' Billy Boy is. Maybe the Trials of Job might smack some humility in to him, but probably not.

[silveradept]

The funny thing is, Job is about an adversary making a bet with God that the reason people worship him is because he does good things for them. It's essentially about trying to find where the point is in life that someone would tell God to fuck off because too much bad stuff has happened to him. And Job doesn't.

(So it's less about instilling humility in anyone, and more about bearing your suffering in silence. And also, at least according to a professor I respect, about proving how much of a dick God will be to his people in the service of winning a bet, which isn't very Godly at all.)