Tread lightly—this video is truly depressing.
“Yo, God, it’s me, Bill. Can you explain how the tides work?”
Today David Silverstein, president of the American Atheist Group went on the Bill O’Reilly show to debate whether god is real and whether religion is valid. O’Reilly gave him a golden hail-mary opportunity to absolutely blow his argument off the map and wipe that smug look off his face, and Silverstein blew it.
Explaining that his religious faith springs from the mysteries of nature that are unexplainable by modern science, O’Reilly said: ““I’ll tell you why [religion is] not a scam, in my opinion. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.”
Even more amazing than Bill O’Reilly not knowing that the tides are caused by the moon’s orbit is the fact that the atheist guy didn’t know it either! Silverstein was left to retort, “It doesn’t matter if I can’t explain it—that doesn’t mean that an invisible magic man in the sky is doing it,” his high school science (or was it middle school?) apparently failing him.
The moon, dude. The moon. Nothing so frustrating as seeing Bill O’Reilly so close to getting eviscerated, and without a rational human being in sight to put him in his place.
I guess it wasn’t meant to be this time—like the 1986 Red Sox. Just wait, O’Reilly—we rationalists will get you one of these days.
January 07, 2011 at 12:45 am, soy bomb said:
Methinks that Insane Clown Posse just found a president for their fan club.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
March 19, 2011 at 8:41 pm, Eric said:
> the atheist guy didn’t know it either! Silverstein was left to retort, “It doesn’t matter if I can’t explain it—that doesn’t mean that an invisible magic man in the sky is doing it
Um, no. The Silverman did know, any 3rd grader knows, which is why he gave Bill a now famous look of shocked incredulity. But he knew (1) he had very limited time to talk before being interrupted again, (2) that if he replied with an explanation Bill would just leap to the NEXT thing he doesn’t understand. “OK, then what causes X? What causes Y? You don’t know. Ergo, God.”
Silverman cut that entire line of “reasoning” off at the legs: this is Argument from Ignorance, the infamous God of the Gaps, historically used to “explain” wind, rain, lightning, thunder, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, famine, crop death, all manner of microbial illness, birth defects, epilepsy, the Sun, Moon, stars, so on and so forth — ANY phenomenon we didn’t understand.
What’s why he said it DOESN’T MATTER if I can’t explain it (though in this case, I could), that doesn’t mean an invisible magic man is doing it.
Rainbows were once glorious, irrefutable evidence for gods. Why would colors spontaneously arrange themselves in this sky in a manner pleasing to humans? They are CLEARLY created by gods as an positive omen. Right?
Assuming there is a magic man behind anything you don’t understand is *anthropomorphication*, projecting yourself onto nature. After tens of thousands of years of such “explanations”, it has a batting average of exactly 0.
January 07, 2011 at 2:01 am, RetiredProf said:
O'Reilly doesn't know, the guest atheist doesn't know, and,… saddest of all,… a HUGE portion of the American population doesn't know,… EITHER!
The dumbing down of this country is the SUREST SIGN that things will get MUCH WORSE before they get better!
March 12, 2011 at 5:00 am, jqb said:
Silverman does know, and that you and the author think he doesn’t casts serious doubt on your own intelligence.
January 07, 2011 at 2:06 am, Mike Blair said:
rational humans cant be controlled as easily
January 07, 2011 at 2:36 am, Sheila said:
I'm quite sure Mr. Silverstein could explain it, but why should he have to? He was too flabbergasted to speak! I know how he feels…. oh my.
January 07, 2011 at 3:48 am, Joseph said:
It is David Silverman, not “Silverstein.” And it is the American Atheists, not “the American Atheist Group.”
January 07, 2011 at 3:52 am, Phillip said:
“It doesn’t matter if I can’t explain it—that doesn’t mean that an invisible magic man in the sky is doing it”
Here, Mr. Silverstein was showing the logical fallacy has made…a false dichotomy. Just because position X is wrong or cannot explain their position (Silverstein) does not mean position Y (O'Reilly) is right.
Anyone with a decent education (including Silverstein) knows it's because of the moon's gravitational pull, Silverstein doesn't need to explain it. He's talking the extra step…granting O'Reilly that even if he can't explain it, it doesn't give support to his theist position. In fact, Silverstein demonstrates this by showing you can apply the same reasoning to other gods.
The author of this article misinterpreted Silverstein's response.
March 12, 2011 at 4:53 am, jqb said:
Exactly right. The author fancies himself to be “rational” but is anything but.
BTW, it’s “Silverman”, not “Silverstein”. That *should* be at least as east to get right as why there are tides.
January 07, 2011 at 4:08 am, Ihatemicrosoftandlovelinux said:
What you mean he didn't understand it, “ball in the sky from Olympus” he clearly not only understood it but made a joke off it.
Clearly he understood it after being flabbergasted but the retarded host.
January 07, 2011 at 5:53 am, AP said:
Maybe Silverstein would have been able to explain it if Bill would let him FINISH A SENTENCE. He barely let the guy speak. Why invite people on your show if you're just going to talk over them the whole time?
February 16, 2011 at 2:21 pm, Georgia Yankee said:
Oh, that’s their secret – that and nitpicking a guest to death so there’s never time to get to the main topic – like for instance OReilly gets Obama on the show: “What? You wore a yellow tie on my show? What’s the matter with you? Well, I see we’re out of time . . .” cut to commercial, then upon return: “Well, we had the President on and as you saw, he didn’t have a single word to say in defense of whatever he was here to defend!”
March 12, 2011 at 4:49 am, jqb said:
O’Reilly’s a coward, afraid to be shown wrong. He invites people on his show a) to make money and b) to win against them, which he does with bullying, threats of physical violence, and even shutting off people’s mikes.
January 07, 2011 at 6:03 am, BJ said:
Well honestly if the guy did know this and mentioned it, O'Liely would have just laughed him off the set and said it was nonsense.
January 07, 2011 at 10:59 pm, Tojo00 said:
As Sheila pointed out, Silverman was stunned by O'Reilly's statement, it's pretty clear to see, particularly when he asks “tide goes in, tide goes out?” back at O'Reilly. As if to say, you're not serious, right?
January 08, 2011 at 12:04 am, Yahzi said:
It is quite obvious that Silverman knew the answer and was making fun of O'Reilly.
Seriously, dude, epic fail on your part. Are you a robot? Do the human concepts of sarcasm and irony consistently elude you? Seriously, how can you write a blog on Entertainment when you can't follow a conversation?
But you make one good point – O'Reilly was eviscerated, and you missed it. Presumably the rest of the nation missed it too. This explains why Faux news is winning – Americans are too stupid to understand when Faux's stupidity is played out in front of them.
January 08, 2011 at 7:58 pm, Noni Sullivan said:
Bill O'Reilly is an idiot. Why Obama chooses to meet with such a fool before the Superbowl is as mysterious to me as the tides are to O'Reilly.
January 08, 2011 at 10:23 pm, Larry Linn said:
O’Reilly said: “I’ll tell you why [religion is] not a scam, in my opinion. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never a miscommunication (sic.). You can’t explain that. You can’t explain why the tide goes in.” BilloO should have checked with his peer, Glenn Beck. Beck can prove that the Tides Foundation is owned and run by George Soros. The only conclusion is that George Soros is God!
January 09, 2011 at 4:06 am, Chi said:
However, if Silverman had mentioned the moons Bill would have yelled that God put the moon in the sky. Had the conversation progressed to gravity, God would have created that too.
The sad fact is that you can't argue with a loon like Bill, unless you're completely taking the micky out of him like Colbert does. Now that was a brilliant exchange.
January 13, 2011 at 2:33 am, Believer said:
Soooooo, does anyone know Who made the moon?
February 12, 2011 at 8:41 am, Rens said:
Current working theory is that back when the Earth was still cooling off it was hit by something big. This shows a computer simulation of how they suspect it happened.
October 27, 2011 at 11:10 pm, jim said:
Eh … they’ll just ask where the “something big” came from, etc. etc. End of the day, you’re at the Big Bang (unless you’re dealing with a creationist, in which case you’re *really* wasting your time.) What made the Big Bang happen? Nobody knows.
Some people like a certain story in an old book about a super-duper all-powerful man who made it happen. They can’t prove it, but an all-powerful god sure is handy: you can use it to explain absolutely everything. The fact that it can explain absolutely anything, and is therefore a lazy and worthless “explanation”, doesn’t occur to them.
March 12, 2011 at 5:07 am, jqb said:
Does anyone know who made you so ignorant. Believer?
January 14, 2011 at 5:29 pm, Firedude13 said:
I don’t think you understand why the moon causes the tides to move in and out. Who caused that to happen. Check out how a dragon fly navigates during their migration. You think that system was by chance and breeding. Have any ideal what the odds of that happening is?
January 14, 2011 at 5:29 pm, Firedude13 said:
I don’t think you understand why the moon causes the tides to move in and out. Who caused that to happen. Check out how a dragon fly navigates during their migration. You think that system was by chance and breeding. Have any ideal what the odds of that happening is?
January 18, 2011 at 6:00 pm, Joseph C Wren said:
A lot better than the odds of a benevolent space-god that demands sacrifice of himself to himself.
January 30, 2011 at 4:55 pm, Chris Bell said:
Have any idea what the odds are of an ever powerful being just popping into existence with no ancestors or creator?
March 12, 2011 at 5:04 am, jqb said:
It’s the same question as the odds that, if you’re dealt a poker hand, you’ll get just that hand. Who caused that to happen? The question is full of stupid.
February 03, 2011 at 6:50 pm, Kingcochee said:
i saw that show. o’reilly was mentioning that tides go in and tides go out, and the sun comes up and the sun comes down (do you really think he believes the sun orbits around the earth too???) as a way to show a simple consistency and reliability to the universe that cannot be explained by atheist mantras that it all happened purely by chance, by accident. I think his point was a good one. He didn’t need to get into detailing “how” tides are effected by the moon to make his point….
February 11, 2011 at 12:24 am, custologos said:
He’s said this a number of times and here’s Richard Dawkins telling O’Reilly we can explain it (from three years ago) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FARDDcdFaQ
February 14, 2011 at 2:35 pm, Georgia Yankee said:
Not really such a disappointment – now credible science types can explain the mechanics of the tides to Mr. O and he cal look at them in astonishment and call it junk science – it the moon’s gravitational force can cause the tides, moving thousands of tons of water, he’ll holler, how come we light mortals aren’t just sent flying off the face of the planet?
February 16, 2011 at 2:13 pm, dennis c. said:
Bill’s right and i’m not crazy about him either.In my humble opinion i am aghast when so called intelligent people deny the existance of a higher power an intelligent power.You can argue until the cow’s come home with people like that it would’nt do any good.The writer of the article talks about the moon causeing it granted it doe’s.How many times have we sat down and talked about the universe with mortal people mind you and some one would say wow this stuff is blowing my mind.You know that even the bible calls god dynamic energy what scientist would have a problem with that? Another part says that my ways are higher then your ways and my thoughts are higher then your thoughts would’nt that be something a god would say? Some say that religion is the opium of the people,i would say that there is something in mankind that seeks something higher then himself.At least agnostics believe in a higher power but athiests may be academically bright because they studdied something,but another scripture says that they are among the very foolish.But in the end athiests don’t exspect anything after death and that will at least their athiest religion because thats what it is another form of religion.So the athiest is religious afterall.
February 17, 2011 at 9:50 pm, zed said:
“At least agnostics believe in a higher power…”
Completely false, and a prime example of not understanding the English language. Let’s examine agnostic: a:without, gnostic: knowledge. Without knowledge. EVERYBODY on this planet is an agnostic; whether that means agnostic atheist or agnostic theist is irrelevant. None of us really truly know, none of us have that information. However, as an intelligent person that doesn’t buy the fairy tale, I must say, it would be intellectually dishonest and a complete bastardization of my integrity to say that a god, ANY god, exists, without having any empirical evidence of said god whatsoever. Do you believe in pink unicorns? I certainly don’t, I haven’t seen any, though many books have been written about them.
February 17, 2011 at 10:05 pm, zed said:
“But in the end athiests don’t exspect anything after death and that will at least their athiest religion because thats what it is another form of religion.So the athiest is religious afterall.”
I just had to respond to this one, as well. You’ve GOT to be trolling. Perhaps not, as I notice you can’t even spell the word ‘atheist’ properly. Perhaps you really are that thick. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods. There is no dogma there, there is no scripture, there is no forced morality. It is simply a rejection of delusional fairy tales that have no basis in reality.
I’d love to hear a response from you but I’m going to have to ask you to step your game up; your scribblings are simply laughable as they are. Try harder.
March 12, 2011 at 4:57 am, jqb said:
Fuck but you’re stupid.
March 15, 2011 at 11:56 pm, Cranovich said:
ha, you’re an idiot!
February 16, 2011 at 5:48 pm, Jordan Howlett said:
haha both are idiots.
March 12, 2011 at 5:05 am, jqb said:
O’Reilly is a fool like you; Silverman is not.
February 16, 2011 at 6:13 pm, Jordan Howlett said:
Also, if Atheists believe whole-heartedly that there is no God or any higher power, why argue? I mean… why spend your whole life preaching that there is no God and that when you die nothing happens to people that believe that there is a God and when they die they either go to heaven or hell. Wouldn’t you just want to live life and enjoy it while your here? I don’t like to take sides on topics of religion, I have many friends of many different backgrounds and affiliation, what you believe is what you believe and thats cool with me. It’s just a thought.
March 12, 2011 at 5:05 am, jqb said:
We would like that, but religious fucks don’t make it possible.
February 18, 2011 at 8:14 pm, Anthony Joseph Caruso said:
The sheer look of “WTF!?” on Silverstein’s face is enough to explain why he couldn’t (or perchance, just didn’t bother to) explain how it works. I’m not sure Bill would have been able to wrap his head around the idea without extensive “dumbing-down” and diagrams.
March 12, 2011 at 4:46 am, jqb said:
“the fact that the atheist guy didn’t know it either” — that’s not a fact, fool.
“It doesn’t matter if I can’t explain it—that doesn’t mean that an invisible magic man in the sky is doing it,” his high school science (or was it middle school?) apparently failing him.
That’s not what he’s saying, fool. “It doesn’t matter if I can explain it” doesn’t mean he can’t explain it — of course he can. His point was that whether he can explain it or not, concluding that it must be god doing it is STUPID. If Silverman had taken the time to give O’Reilly a physics lesson, O’Reilly just would have asked another “why” question, like a 5 year old … as he did in his subsequent segment where he asked where the moon comes from, why Venus and Mars don’t have one, why there isn’t life on those other planets, how the amoeba got here, etc. etc. etc. The point — Silverman’s point — is that none of these questions, or an inability to answer them, imply the existence of God. Siverman has twice your intelligence, and if you were to go on O’Reilly’s show he would turn you into a blubbering quivering pool of piss. Silverman did an excellent job of standing up to O’Reilly’s sociopathic bullying, far better than you could have.
March 19, 2011 at 11:47 pm, JoeZ said:
Heh, I think he neglected to explain it on purpose. As someone who’s had a number of “debates” with the hopelessly religious, I can see that this was an obvious attempt to sidestep the issue and lead the conversation in a different direction. The more time Silverstein spends explaining gravity, the less time he has to make relevant points. The poor guy’s only got five minutes, and three quarters of that is spent being talked for and over. So, instead of following O’Reilly’s lead, going off on a tangent, he attacked the argument at its source — Not only hitting the proverbial nail on the head, but also opening himself up for another important talking point.
March 31, 2011 at 9:50 pm, Adrik said:
OMG what an idiot!!! Tide goes in, tide goes out… =0
http://www.geekosystem.com/bill-oreilly-cant-explain-that-meme/
July 22, 2011 at 3:25 pm, Galen123 said:
Dude, Silverstein knows about the tides. Don’t be such a jerk.
October 22, 2011 at 2:58 pm, Poo said:
Must be some sort of miscommunication.
April 01, 2012 at 5:07 pm, Bill O’Reilly – Can’t Explain That Meme | A Routine Life said:
[...] president David Silverman, O’Reilly attempted to prove the existence of God by citing the mystery of the tides: “I’ll tell you why [religion is] not a scam, in my opinion. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never [...]
May 27, 2012 at 6:53 am, Can’t Explain That… « They Say it's in the Genes said:
[...] president David Silverman, O’Reilly attempted to prove the existence of God by citing the mystery of the tides: “I’ll tell you why [religion is] not a scam, in my opinion. Tide goes in, tide goes out. Never [...]
June 04, 2012 at 11:31 pm, Maxwell Adams said:
It's David Silverman, not Silverstein. What a lame report.
July 28, 2012 at 5:04 pm, Maxwell Adams said:
It's David Silverman, not Silverstein.
August 03, 2012 at 10:23 pm, Alec Barratt said:
Pretty sure the moons control the tides, if I remember correctly from grade 1.
August 03, 2012 at 10:39 pm, Sebastian Matei said:
blasphemy!
August 03, 2012 at 10:44 pm, Diandra Averletti said:
Hahahaha
August 28, 2012 at 12:36 am, On Bill O’Reilly’s Argument for God | Don Johnson Evangelistic Ministries said:
[...] and Brandon discuss Bill O’Reilly’s interaction with atheist Dave Silverman as well as Stephen Colbert’s funny response to it. Along the way Don references Apple’s [...]
November 20, 2012 at 9:18 am, Marco Rubio and the age of the Earth « Many Worlds Theory said:
[...] a mystery, like how the tides work or how magnets work. I guess the real mystery is why anyone takes Marco Rubio [...]
January 18, 2013 at 9:25 pm, Una serie de eventos (astrológicos) desafortunados. | Proposterous said:
[...] que no sigue lógicamente a lo que precede (non sequitur). La cereza del pastel es una provocación “Tides goes in and tides goes out… never a miscommunication. You can’t explain tha…, que es la firma de Bill [...]