Sometimes I get really disappointed with other blogs around here, in that they never seem to pick up on any issues regarding religion. AMERICAblog adores the gay/lesbian stories, the others stick with generally political stories but dip into civil rights type issues when it’s anything but religion. So I was incredibly annoyed to find that while Crooks and Liars linked to Bill O’Reilly’s talking points, there was no video from his rather revealing interview with Richard Dawkins.

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There are so many severely stupid things in this interview it’s difficult to list them all off. To start with, I’m actually impressed with how humble Bill is during all this, which I’m going to assume is not evidence of him becoming a better person (Geraldo, anyone?), but rather possible evidence that when paired up with someone irrefutably smarter than himself he turns much softer.

Note, for example, that he doesn’t actually say that Christ is the true Messiah or any of that. He actually goes so far as to say that it’s “true to me,” which I will readily admit is a far more progressive comment than I would ever expect out of O’Reilly. A tip of my hat to him in that regard, arguing for the personal nature of Christianity over its true historicity. Of course, this is also the guy who wrote that Jesus was primarily a philosopher and that’s why we should celebrate Christmas, so who knows.

The far more bothersome part of the interview came later when O’Reilly brought up Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. In “The God Delusion,” Dawkins spends a long time explaining first of all that Hitler wasn’t an atheist, but secondly that their atheism had nothing to do with what they did, and thirdly that they were killers on that magnitude not because they were more evil than anyone else but because of 20th century technology. He dismantles the argument handily, yet O’Reilly brings it up like he’s hit on gold.

Which brings me to my conclusion, and why O’Reilly annoys me. Like him or not, Jon Stewart actually reads his guests’ books. When he had Ramesh Ponnuru on, he actually read “The Party of Death” before interviewing him and brought up points from the book itself. O’Reilly obviously didn’t even read the preface to “The God Delusion” but attempted to hold a debate with Dawkins anyway, and proceeded to use talking points that are handily dismissed within the book’s pages.

It’s just a shame that other blogs avoid these stories. Also, sorry about having such a religious bend lately to any of my older readers who hopped in before the recent switch. When my schedule permits I’ll be back to the grind.