When you turn away from God and religion, Glenn Beck says you put your hope and trust in Barack Obama instead:
He also says that the US became a powerful country because we acknowledged God (unlike, you know, all those other countries), and now it will decline as people turn into evil atheists.
The stupid, it burns! It’s hard to believe people actually watch his guy for anything but entertainment.
(via)
I saw this yesterday and it just made me rage. I actually used to enjoy Beck on the radio and on CNN for entertainment value. No more. Sad thing is I sent this clip to some family that’s religious and they loved it. Even after I pointed out the God he’s talking about is the Mormon one….unless Mormons really are Christian like they claim. No answer on that one for some reason. >_<
From what I read, percentage-wise no group in the US is more homophobic and deeply religious than blacks (“African Americans”), perfectly in line with Beck’s ideal. Who are the people in Beck’s video then? They’re the most unlikely minority, black atheists? And Beck knows that how?
Asshole.
How is it that in the US a moron like this can have such power and influence?
(OK, we have morons here in the UK but on the whole they don’t get to be so rich and influential, especially if they bang on about Jebus)
His highest rated show had 3 million viewers. That’s one-hundredth of the population of the country.
And some people just watch him for the lulz.
I sadly no people who hang on every word this man says! But I guess if you are afraid to think for yourself……
Also, in the above “no = know”. Not nearly enough coffee within reach for me today.
Mmmmmmmmm…
Coffee…
*goes to get some, and a bit of that coffee cake the boss left from yesterday*
You have cake!?!?!?!
*sigh* Now I want cake too….
Eating it right now.
Ty–You can’t have your cake and eat it … Says so in the Bible, I think.
Here’s the problem with what you just said.
I was thinking about this last night as I was posting about the then-latest ignorant Beck statement (about how the Vancouver Olympic games, which are next year, lost so much money when they had them). My knee-jerk reaction was like yours: “Man, this guy is a fucking idiot.” And then I remembered the unfortunate truth:
Glenn Beck is not an idiot. In fact, he’s most probably the opposite, and that’s the problem. Fox News is a news channel with a very, very thinly veiled agenda. It uses pundits like Beck to deliver its message, and unfortunately, it does that quite well: Fox retains very high loyalty ratings, and its viewers consistently believe that they are the most informed Americans in polls. Obviously, the truth is the exact opposite, but the viewers don’t know that.
Beck isn’t stupid. He’s just an opportunistic, amoral ass who uses the gullibility of his viewers to push his message.
At 0.45/0.46, does he say the “f” word?
Also – idiots like this get on prime-time TV in your country? Good grief!
“What do [we] fill the void with?” – What void?! I don’t feel any void! There is no void! What a moron!
“Why is America so powerful? What did [they] do different?” – You spend HALF OF THE WORLD’S MILITARY BUDGET!!!! THAT and ONLY THAT is the reason America is so powerful!
That and export culture…
( I hope to God we aren’t exporting Glen Beck as culture. He definitely doesn’t qualify…)
unless you mean as a bacterial culture.
WIN!
No way would he ever be allowed on European TV. And most of Europe’s TV (particularly France’s and Italy’s, for some reason) is utter garbage.
Italy has produced some of the best game shows know to man.
mmm…I think you don’t know spanish TV
“What do they fill the void with?”
If a god isn’t there, the void would be some supernatural belief in one. If I don’t believe in ghosts and witches, I am not lacking something in my life – I just know that they are bullshit. Same with unicorns (the obligatory analogy) .
You have a void because you have not accepted the God-Biscuit, all hail the mighty yeast, for he rises!
And his son Sausage (Jesus said backwards!)
The Nuclear Platypus will fill you in.
http://www.god-biscuit.com/page04.html
Happy almost Friday everyone!
Oh, man! You should warn people. I made the mistake of going to that stupid biscuit site and almost didn’t make it back!
“What do you fill the void with?”
I love that question. I fill it with the same thing that I used when I filled the Void left by Santa.
Dark chocolate is also a viable option as a void filler. Especially when mixed with peanut butter.
Void? What void?
Did I miss something?
Being Canadian, I cannot for the life of me understand how someone can essentially “preach” on a news station! I’m sure our news stations aren’t perfectly secular, but they’re also not so blatantly religious. Then again I’m not familiar with his show….but the fact that FOX carries it……boggles my mind because I associate FOX with being a “news network.”
There’s your first mistake. Thinking that Fox Noise airs anything other than their own opinions. It sure ain’t news.
“Fox Noise”
I’m a fan of Faux News if we are going to play with their name.
I was going to say just go all the way and call it Faux Noise, but then I realized that’d be implying it’s not really noise, which it most certainly is.
According to TVNewser, here:
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/q3_cable_ratings_fnc_shows_fill_top_10_3_network_on_cable_beck_grows_timeslot_136_137122.asp
“Q3 Cable Ratings: FNC Shows Fill Top 10; #3 Network on Cable; Beck Grows Timeslot 136%
“…FNC had the top 10 programs in cable news. “The O’Reilly Factor” has been the #1 cable news show for 106 consecutive months. From 4pmET to 11pmET, all of FNC’s programs showed growth, most double digits:
Rank/Show — Total Viewer / A25-54 demo growth
2. “Hannity,” — 9% / 17%
3. “Glenn Beck,” — 89% / 136%
4. “On the Record,” — 16% / 21%
5. “Special Report” — 20% / 34%
6. “The FOX Report” — 9% / 18%
9. “Your World” — 16% / 27%…”
It’s just sick…
Beck is no doubt completely oblivious to the fact that atheists are found across the political spectrum, even if the majority are liberal. The only thing we all agree on is that we don’t believe in gods.
He also conveniently glosses over the fact the The People’s Republic of Enforced Atheism (AKA China) is busy kicking your economic arse around the globe – in fact, since most of China’s businesses buy their assets in dollars and there are 1,700 million Chinese (versus 300 million Americans), they own more American dollars than America does. What that means, in effect, is that the minute Beijing has a tizzy and decides to order everybody to exchange their assets for Euros instead of Dollars, the value of the US Dollar will be about a quarter to a third of what it is now. Don’t doubt that it might happen, either – your economy has always been propped-up by oil being valued in US$ per barrel – look what happened to Iraq when they switched to selling in Euros, and look at the pre-war propoganda you’re being fed about Iran because they’re planning to do the same. Think America could succesfully invade China? I think the USA’d be extinct as a nation pretty bloody quickly if they tried it.
My point is, Glen Beck is busily sucking his own dick for being American, while basking in his own ignorance of how easily being American could mean living in a third-world economy on the say-so of Communist China.
Technically, they hold their assets in US Treasury Bills, and the notion of divestiture is much more complicated (and likely, for China, to be utterly suicidal) than you are making it out to be here.
Of course, none of this makes Beck any less of a moron. :)
And if having god as part of the government is the way to world power then why isn’t the world led by the Vatican, Iran and Afganistan.
Duh! They don’t believe in the right god
(and by the way, have you forgotten Israel on your list?)
Glen Beck makes me feel dumber for having watched that clip.
“….the stupid, it burns!….”
That is the funniest line I’ve heard in months.
Still laughing.
There is a great picture that Dr Plait at Bad Astronomy uses for that saying. http://www.plognark.com/?q=node/10567
We need to build some idols and place them here and there around the country. That’s because it’s hard to worship the man in person. He’s almost never around and when he is those nasty Secret Service guys get suspicious if you genuflect. Idols wouldn’t be as potent, I realize, but they’re better than nothing.
But then there’s the politically tricky question of what material to build the idols from.
I beg your pardon! That’s not open to discussion. It’s got to be gold. You’re not a secret aObamaist, are you? Maybe a member of some breakaway, heretical sect?
I prefer to build them from the Tears of Unicorns.
But if you make it out of gold you will be clearly mocking his ethnic heritage!
No… that would be the case if you made it out of chocolate. :P
omg. A chocolate Obama statue. Whew! I’d be too tempted to bite into it. Not a very dignified form of worship, but delicious in too many ways not to do it! LOL!
mmm… chocolate…
Well, pastafarians and christians also eat their gods
That’s not cannibalism–It’s communion!
Not if it’s tasty, 70% cacao chocolate.
Mmm…
Obama! You’re Barakin’ my world!
(Stole that from Will & Grace)
I was at the Obama inauguration, and I was surrounded by people yelling “praise Jesus” as Obama made his speech. If they were atheists as he says, I must have been hearing voices … though my Hindu friend standing next to me heard it too. (it was slightly uncomfortable and I thought they should get a room, but I digress.)
“…let us die to make men free.”
Pity he doesn’t understand that the church doesn’t make men free at all – quite the opposite.
Pity he isn’t willing to be the first to die.
Beck is not only completely screwy, he’s factually incorrect when he says that “In God we trust” is not on some of the country’s money. This is an urban legend which has been debunked in several places. Maybe Beckie boy ought to have checked Snopes before screeching about the country’s putative godlessness? What a creep.
Facts and truth are clearly a liberal and atheist agenda. He must refuse them at all costs, lest he fall into their devious trap.
I’d even go one step further and say that facts and veracity are anathema to any ideologue of any sort. Beckie boy is merely one example of this phenomenon.
If Beck fact checked his diatribes and didn’t use anything that was incorrect, his show would be 22 minutes of him staring blankly at the camera and drooling on his shirt.
Which is, coincidentally, what many of his viewers are probably doing.
One aspect of religiosity is that it leads some people to minimize the importance of their own experience, exchanging it for following an external authority. Rather than believing in their own experience and conclusions that can reasonably be drawn therefrom, cultishly religious people will believe in the words of a scripture, or of a charismatic preacher, or in beliefs shared by a flock.
In rejecting religion, some people turn to belief in their own experience, while others simply transfer the belief they had in religious authority to some other authority or group. I have certainly witnessed many people who follow a political dogma, or party, or charismatic political personality, with blind devotion that has similarities to how a Christian follows the Bible, or a New Ager follows a guru.
Thinking through each particular issue for oneself is difficult and stressful. It’s certainly more convenient to just follow an authority (blindly believing the Bible on every spiritual issue, blindly supporting the Democratic or Republican talking-points on every political issue, etc). It may even be unavoidable to rely on authorities to a certain extent… but clearly, we can be attentive to when our adherence to authorities or group-beleifs goes too far.
It’s not for nothing that Atheist Bill Maher calls Obama “Chocolate Jesus.” Not a few people do indeed support and believe in our president with religious fervor. There may well be a hydrolic dynamic at work: some people satisfy their desire for authority by believing in religion, and others without religious faith express that same urge through dogmatic political beliefs. Facing this issue goes beyond holding an opinion about Glen Beck one way or the other.
Steven Colbert must be so proud of Glen Beck.
@Stuart Resnick:
AFAIK Bill Maher isn’t an atheist, but an agnostic. He’s certainly anti-religion, but he’s not that much of a skeptic.
Also, he has his own woo-ey beliefs (e.g. he’s against science-based medicine, saying Big Pharma is conspiring with the government to keep people continually sick).
What a dick.
I don’t think he believes one word that comes out of his own mouth. He’s a shit stirrer who’ll say anything to get people to listen to him and then finds ways to profit from it. He oozes dishonesty.
Note: Forbes magazine estimates his earnings over the last 12 months at $23 million.
His opening tirade certainly makes him look like a bad actor hamming it up, rather than someone going by his deeply held convictions.
But I suppose you can hold inflammatory and idiotic opinions and be a bad actor at the same time.
RepubliKKKan, Glen BecKKK’s IQ equals his height in inches, same for his viewers. That was the longest 4:55 minutes of my life……………..
I hate this man.
Thunderf00t has a good video about this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMwZ76QB7uk&feature=channel_page
it’s pretty amazing that the FCC won’t let you hear the word fuck, even in a context where it would be appropriate, on television, but they will let Glen Beck willfully lie and potentially incite violence.
A good subject for debate: Who’s better off? America, where the media can say what they like (true or false) without reprisal (so long as they phrase it carefully), or the UK, where they can actually be jailed for spreading hatred and intollerence?
I’m gonna say the UK. Free speach is an admirable sentiment, but I genuinly believe that we should not be free to offend people and lie about them publicly.
I think I would rephrase the question. In my mind, the issue isn’t “who’s better off?” But rather, “What are the potential negative outcomes for personal freedom?”
A good amendment. The thing is, in Britain it’s patently clear that the people who are most curbed by our laws are spiteful, racist xenophobes who aren’t allowed to broadcast their hatred to all and sundry. You can still say whatever you like, with the proviso that it must be provably true – that, to me, is a good caveat to ass to free speach.
Typo: “add”, not “ass”! Bloomin’ Freudian typos…
. You can still say whatever you like, with the proviso that it must be provably true – that, to me, is a good caveat to ass to free speach.
Funny typos aside, it seems like this would be pretty easy to sidestep, no?
Instead of saying, “Obama wasn’t born in the US!!!!” Couldn’t it simply be rephrased as a rhetorical question, “Was Obama born in the US? I don’t, and I haven’t seen anyone prove it yet!!”
No, that would be knowingly telling a lie – Obama was born in the US, and it can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt with very little effort and about 12 seconds on the interwebs. In court a judge would likely rule that you spread a baseless rumour without bothering to put in the minimal effort required to prove it false, and thus were guilty.
I dunno about the whole idea of throwing people in jail for saying something that isn’t true. After all, most of us don’t think a god can be proven. Does that mean that anyone saying a god exists should go to jail because they can’t prove it?
Though I don’t always like the results of free speech, I do think it’s very important. I don’t want someone threatening to put *me* in jail because they think I’m saying something false (“you can’t prove there isn’t a god!”).
It’s not just the lie, it’s the lie which is deliberately offensive.
For example, it is perfectly legal for me to say “In London, the majority of street crime is perpetrated by young, black men.” I can say that because it really is true, though I’m sure there are those who would take offence at it anyway. What I CANNOT say is that “all young, black men are muggers”. To say that latter would be baseless racism, and so illegal to say publicly. Similarly, I could publicly say “I really do love Beyonce, I think she’s a marvellous singer and a talented writer”. That is a lie – in fact, I can’t stand her music. But I would not be breaking the law by saying it, because it’s not offensive and doesn’t spread hate.
Simples!
But the complicated bit here is that when someone is allowed to say hateful things, we know who they are and what they think, they are not hidden and skulking around us. We are able to form more accurate impressions of people who are allowed free speech, which must be protected. It allows us to monitor one another by censoring nobody in particular. It is vital for sharing information in that someone may not agree with you, if you are right and they are the ones who are wrong, but they can’t call it heresy.
If the freedom of offensive and hateful speech is not protected, in a sense, none of our speech is protected. It all hinges on who gets to say what is offensive, and that’s kind of precarious, and can be used so arbitrarily.
Private entities are allowed to have standards though, and keep people who are associated with them from being offensive by their own idea of what that means. Also, employers, for example, can allow offensive speech (as long as they aren’t discriminatory) up to the point where it becomes a hostile work environment for a group or individual. If everyone likes the dirty jokes, then they aren’t offending anyone – only until they don’t shut up when someone asks them to, it becomes more of an issue of antagonizing the “prude,” which is a matter of much misperception and debate in the US, so I’m sorry for bringing it up if it goes off-topic. Employers are also discouraged by law from discriminating against potential employees by asking certain questions about their sexuality or marital status, etc. in an interview. It can be very awkward to be asked a question and have to counter with, “you’re not allowed to ask that” when you’re looking for a job. Although this may serve some other purpose to the interviewer, it’s usually an indication that they are preferring to hire or not hire certain kinds of people – which, looping back to true freedom of speech and its usefulness, makes their prejudices known instead of hidden.
The right to offend is absolutely critical to free speech. There’s nothing in the world you can say that won’t offend *someone*.
The virtue of free speech is that its problems can be fixed with MORE free speech. Somone expresses an opinion you don’t like, and you can balance it by expressing a different opionion. Government-enforced restrictions on free speech have no such virtue.
We do have a legal system in the US whereby if someone harms your reputation etc you can indeed take them to court. In such a case, the speaker can make a valid defense by providing evidence why his claim could be true. Speech that’s offensive, but is true (or is an opinion that’s not demonstrably false), is allowed.
Agreed. Lots of people are offended by atheism in the US — that doesn’t mean atheists should go to jail because they’re offending others. Same thing goes for Christians. It’s a two way street.
But under UK law, anybody who wanted to prosecute you for offensively criticising the Catholic Church’s version of God / Jesus would have to prove a number of things:
1) God exists.
2) Jesus existed.
3) God fathered Jesus by magically raping a teenaged girl.
4) God and Jesus are the same man, meaning that Jesus raped his mother and fathered a child in a gross act of incest.
Okay, so they wouldn’t be actually having to prove 3) and 4), I got a bit carried away. But you see my point. They could never prove that anything you said about Jesus wasn’t actually true, because they would first have to provide unbiassed third-party evidence to the contrary.
I’ve been moderated! It BURNZ!
A complete, opportunistic idiot. I have no doubt that he is laughing all the way to the bank. No one could be this stupid…even if the audience is…
He’s one sick puppy, ain’t he? Wow, I had never actually seen him before, just heard about him. (I don’t watch Faux News). I have to the urge to go vomit now.
Don’t you feel enriched, now?
Glenn, it’s called Civil Religion – you grew up with it.
You have to remember one thing about this guy:
HE’S A REFORMED ALCOHOLIC WHO TRADED ONE ADDICTION (ALCOHOL) FOR ANOTHER (RELIGION),
And like a person who is addicted to drugs or alcohol or both, they MAKE THOSE AROUND THEM LIVES A LIVING BREATHING HELL.
Now he still makes those around him lives a LIVING BREATH HELL BUT WITH RELIGION.
SAME ADDICTION DIFFERENT DRUG
but more money
Welcome to the Glenn Beck hating train Atheist friends! What you’re looking at is the Howard Beale of Television News. Howard Beale is the main character in a 70s movies titled “Network” who was a deranged man who thought god told him things to say to viewers. His most famous line is when he asked folks to stick their heads out the window and yell “I’M MAD AS HELL I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!” At the end of the movie, his anti-business views and low ratings caused him to be killed. Now, we have this lunatic who believes that our President Obama hates white people/culture, that children are being indoctrinated, that Obama is destroying this country, and lots of other things that’ll make my head explode. Also, he’s started a program to find the same amount of folks as the number whom signed our Declaration of Independance called the “Refounders” program. The sad part is that he has become the rockstar of Fox News Channel. Fellow FNCer Shepard Smith (the ONLY sanest person on FNC) was sarcastic when they called a Friday “Glenn Beck Friday”. And now, he says we became great because we believed in god? Great, just like we used god as an excuse to kill millions of Native Americans and other European powers used it as an excuse to kill millions of Mexican, African, and Caribbean peoples and enslave millions more. If the God they preach about in the mainstream, the ones who say God loves us all, existed He would frown at the things they do in His name. But the truth, however hurtful it is, is the truth. God doesn’t love us at ALL, but actually helped kill millions ALL OVER THE bible. But again, these folks are the same whose dream is to make this country a theocracy, to refuse civil rights, and to control every and all sections of the American lifestyle. They say Democrats want to? HELLO, Nixon did watergate, and Bush…well you know his stuff by now. And the network that he means when talking about the “Church of Obama” is NBC/MSNBC. Yeah, even when they have Republicans individuals on most of the day and there are numerous republican talking heads on even the most liberal show IMO hosted by Ed Schultz they worship Obama. Good lord, this is EXACTLY the reason why the 3 BIG religions have destroyed us. Christianity and Judaism follow a God whom wants you to either believe in Him or die. And Islam is being stained (but not entirely controlled) by Al-Qaeda and the other Terrorist groups who preach that they’ll be blessed by Allah (aka God) and will have sex for all eternity by 72 virgins. Come on folks, this is 2009 and the internet has been a blessing to those of us alienated. Apparently, God frowns when women want to abort their children whom was procreated through rape or incest. He frowns when we love someone who JUST HAPPENS to be the same gender as us. And He frowns when we believe in things that are NOT part of His religion. And He frowns when women are just as powerful, if not MORE powerful, as His gender in the workplace.
Sorry if I rambled, but all of this is the TRUTH. The truth hurts, but it’s all worth it!
—Kevin Grussing
Haha! Glen Beck is a funny little idiot-clown! I wish there were fewer like him though.
So does anyone know the truth about the rumor that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990?
I mean, if he didn’t do it all he has to do is prove it.
It’s not that hard to prove a negative, is it?
Didn’t he also eat her poppy?
What can you expect from Beck? he is a devout Mormon. His views are skewed by their views and policies. I know because I am a recovering Mormon now Atheist. I finally saw the REAL light!!
I have to ask, and please don’t take offense because my curiosity is genuine: How did you get taken in by a story which is so absurd even by the standards of world religions?
I’d love it if you could maybe write about your experiences and ask if Daniel would be willing to post it.
I knew a woman who was converted to mormonism by happy words and politeness. Her friends were taking drugs and having sex, but the mormon family down the street seemed better to her… a good family life, no slutting around. That was enough to get her to convert and a few months later they were using her as a proxy to baptize the dead. Thinking about how silly that was deconverted her, but not until after the priests got to ogle a pretty girl in a wet white robe.
Was it just me, or when he said, sorry shouted “IS IT NOT ENOUGH SOCIAL JUSTICE???” did anyone else think “probably”?
Glenn Beck can be summed up in one word: whackaloon.
Have you all seen this attempt to give Glenn a taste of his own medicine? http://gb1990.com/
I generally think fighting fire with fire is a bad idea … but I’m willing to make an exception for Glenn.
Some one (I assumed an atheist) posted on another subject on this web site, that he believe that President Obama was the greatest man America had produced in a generation and it made him cry when people criticized the president. Out of 300 million citizens in America, the best we could do is a handsome man with little political experience and no experience running a business. Bill Richardson would have been a better choice.
Obama and some of his supporters have helped to create and tolerate the creation of the cult of personality. Sadly the only people who seem to denounce this are members of the cult of the religious right.
The American President was never meant to be a national CEO or messiah. Many people seem to be ignorant of this fact. I hope one day someone will run for president and tell the America people “I can’t solve all of your problems”.
http://reason.com/archives/2008/05/12/the-cult-of-the-presidency
WOAH! Hold on thar, hoss!
How do you explain G W Bush, then? A man who has a record of corruption and graft going back to his college days, a man who has failed in every single business he has tried to run, a man who is, basically, considered to be a complete joke by anybody who knows anything whatsoever about his personal history before he ran for president! What did he get in on if not his personality? Most people are idiots, and they could relate to GWB. That’s the bottom line.
You want cult of personality?
George W. Bush
The Late Holy Saint Reagan
Rush Limbaugh
(M) Ann Coulter
Glenn Back
Mike Savage
Michelle Malkin
Michelle Bachmann
Orly Taitz
Millard Fillmore
Ayn Rand
…
They’re none of them “lefties”, and almost every one of them (mostly shrieking, vile, racist, plutocratic hate-filled bastards) predates Obama by decades. All enabled by the “right”. No parallel can be seen on the left.
Obamamania was the phenomenon engendered by the end of the miserably dark age of Bush. It’s clearly over now, and he’s an ordinary president struggling with extraordinarily vile, deliberately mendacious, intentionally racist, paranoid and violent opposition to his very modest attempts at governance.
Sure, saying Obama was the greatest man in a generation is hyperbole. But the cult of personality was founded, watered, and defended for decades by the right. Until it bit ‘em in the ass and serve ‘em Right.
Watching FOX has been correlated with increased risk of cancer. Pass it on.
Well said, Metro!!!!
Selective memories! How impressive. How very convincing.
Oh, you stupid, stupid man. I’m embarrassed to be the same species as Beck. What can we fill that empty “god” space with? Well, how about love? Knowledge? Enjoyment/pleasure? Doing something kind for someone just because we can? Realizing the preciousness of this life, because nobody knows what happens after we die? Humility that we DON’T know what many pretend to know?
Since I gave up “god”, my life is much richer and fuller. “God” gave me guilt, internal conflict, fear, and division. “Atheism” has given me these other things. Which is better?
Atheists worship Obama as a God? Who invents these types of idea’s?
I don’t know. I thought it was just an expression of relief.
Just saw this article about everyones favorite crier. http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/143045/video:_glenn_beck's_secret_for_crying_on_cue:_vicks_vaporub_under_the_eyes I wonder if this is the way he does it for his show?
3:24 LOL