Announcer: The David Pakman Show at www.DavidPakman.com.
David: Welcome back to the show. Today on
the bonus show, Louis, big, big, big-time
bonus show today. AOL has purchased The Huffington
Post. We will talk about Brazil possibly adding
happiness to its constitution. Teabaggers,
careful, your heads would probably explode
if you heard this story about what Brazil
is doing. Fair to say, Louis?
Louis: Definitely.
David: And we'll talk about a lot of other
stuff. Louis wants to talk about the Black-Eyed
Peas' political statements that were made
at the Superbowl, we'll see if that is allowed,
and plenty more we'll be talking about. So
www.DavidPakman.com/membership. And by the
way, still going on, we're not publishing
this anywhere, we're just mentioning it here
on the show, www.DavidPakman.com/birthday,
special offer on membership. If you've been
waiting to do it or if you've been disgusted
at the idea of becoming a member, let me allay
those fears, this is the time to do it. www.DavidPakman.com/birthday.
Let's get to my interview with David Silverman.
There's really nothing to say, let's just
get right into it. This is probably one of
the more compelling discussions we've had
on the show recently.
Joining us is David Silverman, President of
American Atheists. www.Atheists.org is the
website. Great to talk to you, David.
David Silverman: Thank you for having me on,
Dave.
David: So with great interest I've been watching
some of your recent appearances, Bill O'Reilly,
you were also on I think it was the Fox News,
the morning thing that they do over there.
I don't know exactly what it is. And a lot
of our listeners have been emailing me saying
you should take to Dave Silverman. The big
question I have is when Bill O'Reilly said
you can't explain how the tides work, so therefore,
God must exist. I think you really could've
come back at him better there. You could've
said we know all about the tides, we know
about the moon, we know about gravity, but
you didn't, and my listeners demand to know
why not.
Silverman: OK. Here's the scoop. When you're
on a regular television show, let's say you're
on the first one that you mentioned, the "Fox
and Friends", OK? If I do an eight-minute
segment on "Fox and Friends", I usually get
three, four minutes of talking. When you're
on with Bill O'Reilly, eight minutes turns
into one minute of talking. I had to get in
sound bites.
Now, Bill, what he tries to do and what many
people try to do is they try to control the
conversation. If I want to talk about something,
he's going to try and derail me and talk about
something else. I had seconds to talk on that
show, OK? If you listen to the number of times--
number of minutes I had to talk on that show,
it's nothing. When he brought up that point,
and the same goes for when he brought up the
number of atheists, I had the choice of answering
that question or bringing the conversation
back to what I wanted to talk about. I didn't
want to spend any of my time at all talking
about lunar gravity. I didn't want to spend
any of my time talking about the definition
of atheist, are we 1.6% or are we... or does
that include agnostics and does that include
secular humanists? If we were in a situation
where I had more time to talk, I would've
done that.
David: What about as an aside say well, we
know all about gravity, but... and then boom,
right into your next point?
Silverman: You know what? Hindsight is 20/20.
David: Yeah.
Silverman: If I had fed him anything, my fear
was that he would've taken me on that path.
I didn't want to give him any fuel because
any fuel you'll give them, and you have to
understand, Bill O'Reilly is not stupid. He
is a master at what he does.
David: Definitely.
Silverman: And if you give him fuel, he'll
take it. Bill O'Reilly is not stupid, he is
not ignorant. He knows exactly what makes
the times. But I'm not going to play that
game. If he brings me on that show, that's
fine, I'm really happy that I'm on that show,
but dammit, I'm going to talk about what I
want to talk about and I'm not going to let
him take me off-subject, and that's exactly
why.
David: I've had guests who have done O'Reilly's
show give me little snippets of what the atmosphere
is like off, you know, off-camera there. What's
it like for somebody like you, I mean, we
know that your views certainly don't correspond
with the on-air narrative at Fox News...
Silverman: Right.
David: But behind the scenes, who knows? Maybe
the cameramen are all atheists, I mean, who
really knows? What was it like when, you know,
before you went on the show or after?
Silverman: OK, well, first of all, I will
tell you straight up, there are tons and tons
of atheists at Fox News behind the cameras
and behind the microphones. And I know this
not because I asked them, but because they
sneak up and tell me, OK? And at that interview
at that time, I was actually doing a couple
of different events in New York City, so afterwards
I stayed in the green room and hung out for
a couple hours, and the atheists just came
right out of the woodworks. There are lots
and lots of atheists.
Now, as far as what the atmosphere is, you
know, when you're off-camera, I need you to
understand that, you know, people have made
fun of the face that I made when he had the
whole tide goes in, tide goes out. This is
the scoop: Bill O'Reilly and I sat down at
the table for a solid two minutes before the
camera started rolling. Now, this is my second
time on "The O'Reilly Factor". The first time,
they mic'd me up beforehand, they sat me down,
cameras rolled, end of the segment, off, and
on I went. But this time, I actually had time
to talk to the man. He's eloquent. He is knowledgeable.
He is polite. He's courteous. He knew about
Madalyn Murray O'Hair, he knew about Ron Barrier,
the national-- the former national spokesperson
of American Atheists, he knew about Annie
Laurie Gailer. He had educated questions to
ask.
And then the cameras started rolling, and
we started duking it out, and we started fighting.
And then he comes out with tide goes in, tide
goes out, and that look on my face, that puzzled
look that everybody likes to talk about, if
you watch the tape, that look directly precedes
a realization that you can see on-camera that
I'm talking to a fictional person. I'm talking
to...
David: The on-air persona of Bill O'Reilly.
Silverman: Oh, OK. Well, let's talk about
well, maybe Zeus does it. If you're going
to pull the argument from ignorance, well,
let's use the argument from ignorance to talk
about Zeus. And yes, I do know that Thor does
not live on Mount Olympus, that Zeus lives
on Mount Olympus, and as soon as I said it
I knew it was wrong, I knew I was going to
get crap about it, so stop giving me crap
about it out there.
David: Let me ask you, you mentioned agnosticism,
do you consider agnostics part of atheists
or not?
Silverman: Yes.
David: You do?
Silverman: Yeah. And atheist is a very broad
term, it means you don't have a God. If you
don't have a God because you've never learned
about a god, you're an atheist. If you don't
have a God because you don't think there's
any way we could ever know whether there is
a god but right now, you don't have a God,
you're an atheist. If you don't have a God
because you've examined all the evidence and
you've read every book from Dawkins and every
book from Harrison, every book from Hitchens,
and you're 100% sure that there is no god,
you're an atheist.
David: I guess I'm not sure I agree with you
that if you don't have a specific god in mind,
the you are necessarily an atheist, right?
I mean, for example, I can imagine a-- like,
I don't consider myself an atheist. I think
I'm agnostic, but when I say agnostic, I think
part of the higher power that created the
universe, I think it easily could just be
a very... it could just as easily as Jesus,
or I don't believe in Jesus anyway, I mean,
I was raised Jewish, it could just as easily
be a very advanced, you know, a very advanced
technology that makes us think that we are
in this huge universe and it's all very controlled.
That, to me, is just as believable as a man
in the sky, probably more believable, to be
completely honest.
Silverman: Yeah, probably a lot more believable,
when you think about it.
David: But I don't think that that really
makes me an atheist, does it? I don't feel
like I'm an atheist.
Silverman: Do you have a God?
David: A specific god, or do I believe that
a higher power exists?
Silverman: Do you believe in a higher consciousness?
I mean, there's different levels of agnosticism.
David: Yeah.
Silverman: And some agnostics you could call
a deistic agnostic, but really, when it comes
right down to it, do you have a belief in
a god? Do you have a belief?
David: I have a belief that there very well
could be a higher power more advanced than
me. Do I think it is a deity, per se? No,
no. I don't think so.
Silverman: Then you're an atheist.
David: Really?
Silverman: Yes.
David: I just don't feel like an atheist.
I don't know.
Silverman: That's because...
David: I've been conditioned.
Silverman: You've been conditioned. You have!
You've been conditioned to think that an atheist
is a very, very small subject, a Grinch-like
character who hates everything, who's real
angry. But atheism is very, very broad, and
for all different kinds of atheists, my kind
and your kind.
David: Last thing: did you grow up an atheist?
When did you... were your parents atheists?
How did this all happen?
Silverman: I could tell... I could spend a
lot more than just a few minutes on this.
I was raised in a Jewish home. My mother insisted...
I was an atheist when I was six. I remember
the moment I became an atheist when I was
six years old very clearly. Nothing happened
to instigate it. I lost God, the Easter Bunny,
the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus all at the
same time. I didn't believe ever.
I went to-- I had my Bar Mitzvah as an atheist.
And I stood up in front of my friends and
my family during my Bar Mitzvah and I said,
"Let us declare the greatness of our God and
render honor under the Torah which God gave
through Moses as a heritage through the Congregation
of Jacob..." I had the whole thing memorized,
didn't believe a word of it. My mother knew
I didn't believe a word of it, but I didn't
get a choice, because I was 13. So I went
through the whole Bar Mitzvah, I went through
the confirmation process as an atheist, and
I asked a whole bunch of questions in Hebrew
school, and it never stuck. Interestingly,
it wasn't until I was 30 years old and New
Jersey State Director of American Atheists
that my father came out to me and told me
he was an atheist.
David: Incredible.
Silverman: Yeah.
David: Well, that seems like a whole story
for another day. David Silverman, President
of American Atheists, www.atheists.org.
Silverman: Oh, one more thing, if I could,
the convention prices for students have been
dropped to $20, including membership. So for
$20, a student can come to our national convention
and see PZ Myers, Greta Christina, and Christopher
Hitchens for 20 bucks. Please spread the word.
David: Hitchens alone is worth the 20 bucks.
Silverman: You betcha.
David: All right, thanks David. We'll talk
to you soon.
Silverman: Thanks a bunch, David.
David: All right, and similar to David Silverman,
nothing at Hebrew school sticking for Louis
either. You got tossed out of Hebrew school,
right? Was that what happened?
Louis: No, I just quit.
David: Very good. We'll take a break, we'll
be back after this. www.DavidPakman.com.
Announcer: The David Pakman Show at www.DavidPakman.com.
Transcript provided by Alex Wickersham and
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captions, and subtitles, or for more information,
visit www.Subscriptorium.com, or contact Alex
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