Classic, Dangerous Ignorance: Bill O'Reilly

Bill O’Reilly exposed a dangerous thread of common American ignorance regarding Mohammed and Islam. In a show earlier this week, a courageous Muslim woman tried to educate O’Reilly as to how the Koran is applied so as to provide a de facto sanctioning of rape. In simple terms, a woman’s allegation of rape, if not supported by the testimony of four male witnesses, is evidence of adultery or some other form of sexual immorality punishable by stoning the woman to death. The obvious result: not many raped Muslim women will ever come forward to identify the perpetrator; and more than few Muslim men aren’t afraid of being a perpetrator.

Details and video of the show can be found at an American Thinker post here. an American Thinker post here. But what caught our eye is this jewel of colossal ignorance from Bill O’Reilly:

“I find it hard to believe that the prophet Mohammed would preach a doctrine where any woman can be abused at any time by any Muslim man and not be held accountable.”

This is a classic observation by a typical, well-intentioned, decent American with some degree of knowledge of his or her own Christian denomination or Catholicism, maybe a little knowledge of Judaism, and essentially no knowledge of Islam. Out of this background comes the common understanding of ‘prophets’ as kindly old holy men who offer wisdom and occasional foresight and warnings about the human condition that, if adhered to, may help avoid various kinds of trouble. Having become vaguely familiar somehow with the fact that Islam refers to the “Prophet Mohammed”—then of course this mindset emerges with the O’Reilly thought: surely Mohammed was a kindly old holy man who offered….etc., etc. Surely he wouldn’t “…preach a doctrine where any woman can be abused at any time by any Muslim man and be held not accountable.”

This is deadly, dangerous ignorance. Mohammed was brutal, oppressive, vengeful, and violent, and among other sexual activities, consummated a ‘marriage’ with a 9 year old girl. The Allah of Mohammed’s writings is more or less Mohammed magnified. But don’t take this site’s word for it or anyone else’s word for it. Study the Koran and the hadith. Read more than one ‘biography’ of Mohammed. And while you’re at it, read or re-read the New Testament, and compare Mohammed’s life and teachings with those of Jesus—(an exercise, by the way, that might get you executed under Islam—think about that, too). And if the Koran and hadith are too much to handle, try reading the full text of Geert Wilder’s speech in Rome on March 25 (just a few days ago, click here).

O’Reilly and many Americans like him just can’t accept that something called ‘religion’ could at its core be dark, tyrannical and violent. They’ve heard some pabulum about Judaism, Christianity and Islam all descending from ‘the God of Abraham’, and so they assume there must be some foundational commonality that is good, and that all this ‘jihadist’ stuff must necessarily be filed under the category of ‘radical’ or ‘extreme’ Islam.

The sooner O’Reilly and the rest of Americans like him wake up, the better. Recall what we wrote at the inception of this site:

What people believe God to be, and what they believe themselves to be in relation to God, determines their concept of freedom, virtue, justice and the purpose of life. The ‘war on terror’ may be discussed in terms of economic conditions, number of angry males under age 30, territories, skin color, or oil, but the core conflict is based on radically different views of what God is—and what a man (and woman) created by that God is. The good news is that truth exists and is not in conflict with itself, and eventually all humanity will be blessed as it wakes up to this fact.

Let’s hope the exposure of O’Reilly’s ignorance will help serve the cause of waking up.

Paul Gable

March 29, 2011