Laura Ingraham and Annie Laurie Gaylor Argue Over Winter Billboards

*Biting my tongue because Annie Laurie did*

What an uninformed bully! So glad to see that Annie Laurie remained calm and took the hits like a real lady.

This is 100% of the problem with this country…the media spin on EVERYTHING is king.

I’ve never witnessed such ignorant badgering in my life. She really chalked one up for Jesus, didn’t she? That was painful^100.

If I would judge only by this interview I would think that every christian is rude… What a disrespect.

That was a nauseating clip. Does anyone think that Ingraham is as nasty to Christian guests? I thought not. Good to see that she follows the teachings in her big book of stuff she thinks we should all follow.

Wow. A few seconds in, and I was ready to BLARGARBL on Ingraham. It’s like, “Do you know why Christianity put Christmas around the Solstice, you ignorant, monomaniacal, ignorant, idiotic, ignorant, foolish, uneducated, ignorant douchebag? Oh, and also, you’re ignorant, you fucking cockwaste.”

WTF is a ‘devout atheist’?

I know quite precisely the feeling. Chivalry be damned, I would very much like to put a fist through Laura Ingraham’s face.

Ouch. What an abrasive personality. That was no interview, more like an excuse to attack. The scorn and anger, all righteous and profound, huh?

I think we need to stop being so afraid of the word “Christmas”. I’m an Atheist and I have no problem saying “Merry Christmas” because I do not consider Christmas to be a religious holiday any more. I think of Christmas as more of just an excuse to get together with family. It’s fun to have a happy holiday right in the middle of cold damp weather. Kids don’t wake up early on Christmas morning to see what Jesus left them under the tree. So when I say “Merry Christmas” I in no way intend it to have any religious meaning whatsoever.

Yikes, left a few zeroes off the end of that 240,000,000.

URGH!!! This woman makes me want to leap on the nearest wall and shout “What a horrible CUNTBAG!!!”

Again, I’m a believer–a Roman Catholic (which, if it makes you feel any better, means I’m some sort of evil cultist to a lot of fundamentalists)–and I just think Laura Ingraham’s a dick. Or whatever a “dick” is when it’s female. Uh, wait . . . maybe cancel that last. Oh, you know what I mean. She’s a right-wing nut, and discourteous, and I’m genuinely sorry that your girl wasn’t better-prepared to take her on. If I may be frank, she doesn’t strike me as much of a spokesperson.

Happy Christmas!

I’ll have to agree with one of the previous commenters: this wasn’t an interview, it was a barbaric raid on rationality.

Laura Ingraham is about 9.25 gallons of bias and misinformation. Unfortunately, Annie Laurie Gaylor has the argumentative talent of a confused kitten it seems, making this video all kinds of frustrating to watch.

Also, what’s with the title? Devout Atheist? What is that? Are they still trying to convince folks that atheism is a religion in itself? “How can you be against religion if you, in point of fact, ARE in a religion? lolz lolz lolz GOTCHYAZ HUH?!?” No…not in the least. Nice try though. Here, try it with my kid. Maybe he’ll fall for it.

This video has left me kind of aggravated. I think I need to indulge in some cookie dough and pet a puppy now…or maybe I shouldn’t, because we atheists hate cookie dough and puppies.

@Luther, I had the same train of thought during the interview. How many of those volunteers in Africa are also pushing Bibles and Christianity? My favorite parody of proselytizing was the Starvin Marvin episode of South Park where the Africans had to accept Jesus to get food. If I was suffering from starvation and malnutrition, I would also accept some random story in order to eat.

Wow, that was really obnoxious. Personally, I don’t have an issue with the billboards (I’m a Christian), if Christians can put up Christian billboards then atheists should be able to put up atheistic billboards. I seem to remember something about “freedom of speech” in this country.

As far as wishing folks a “Merry Christmas”… I certainly hope that nobody here would take offense when I do that. I never take offense if some wishes me a “Happy Holidays”, “Happy Hanukkah”, or even a “Merry December Solstice” (Admittedly that last one hasn’t happen…and I’d have to stifle a chuckle whenever I do get around to hearing it only because it sounds a little clunky. Maybe it should be “Have a Super Soltice!”) Heck, I’m just happy that someone is taking the time to wish me well.

Anyhow, cheers everyone

This is 100% of the problem with this country…the media spin on EVERYTHING is king.

To be fair, the FFRF is also playing its own little part in that same game.

That’s right because a lot of people would care about this thing called winter solstice if not for this thing called, ahhh, Christianity.

ahhh, yeah a lot of people would and a lot of people did before this thing called ahhhh, Christianity. In fact it was precisely BECAUSE a lot of people cared that Christians picked this thing called winter solstice to attach their myth to, it was not an accident for Christ’s sake, (pun intended).

That’s right because a lot of people would care about this thing called [the]winter solstice if [were it] not for this thing called, ahhh, Christianity.

Sorry for the misquote and poor attempt to correct it shown above. the quote should have read,

That’s right because a lot of people would care about the winter solstice were it not for this thing called, ahhh, Christianity.

My point remains but it was a sloppy attempt, I’m a bit distracted wrapping Christmas presents, (this has to be a coincidence, just the act of warping boxes could not possibly cloud my mind just because of the tenuous connection to Jesus, Christianity could not be that dangerous) my bad.

Does she always wear that large cross, or was it to protect her from the evil atheist??

@Derek: I agree that the whole solstice greeting thing seems a bit clunky 🙂

Indeed I cringed slightly at the very start when Gaylor responded with a solstice greeting. I get that celebration of the winter solstice is a long-running tradition, but I fear atheists are almost over-compensating with it.

I’m an atheist, I understand the roots of Christmas, and I recognise the winter solstice. I don’t celebrate it (the day is short, whopee), and I don’t wish anybody a “merry” it.

The reason I celebrate during Christmas is because that’s when everyone has time off and that’s when everyone gets together. Nothing to do with Jesus, nothing to do with the Sun.

I don’t tend to wish people any seasonal greetings (the only reason is that I’m too shy for corny stuff like that) but I’ll gladly reply with Merry Christmas to anyone who wishes me the same. I don’t want to get into a whole “well actually the reason for the season is…” discussion.

If people legitimately celebrate the winter solstice (I simply don’t see the point, myself, though I don’t suppose there needs to be one), it’s cool. But I don’t think people need the winter solstice as an answer to Christmas, or as an excuse for the celebrating they’d be doing anyway. If you must justify your cheer at this time of year, how about just “yay, I get to spend time with loved ones during this national holiday.”

Annie was soft on some spots but mostly tough on other spots. I think she did really well, haha.

Laura was condescending this entire interview.

1) “Anti-God show” = Condescending.

2) “Featuring creative messages” = Said with condescending inflections in her voice.

3) “…there is no God’. Haha. Merry Christmas to you too.” = Condescending.

4) “You almost said it!” – Condescending in that Laura plays it as if Annie Laurie doesn’t actually believe what’s shes saying, and can slip into “honesty” at any moment. Laura’s excited that she almost TRICKED Annie Laurie. Why does tricking someone into saying something have validity?

5) “Cause a lot of people would care about the winter solstice if it were not for this thing called.. uh… CHRISTIANITY” = Condescending, AND misleading. There WERE many pagans who celebrated and still do celebrate the solstice, and who’s to say that if they were able to become as popular as Christianity that the same amount of people wouldn’t celebrate the solstice as much as Christians now celebrate Christmas?

6) “As far as I can tell, you just make a pain of yourselves.” – This is not news anymore. It’s an opinion as well as an insult to Annie Laurie. Why insult the person you’ve asked to interview?

7) “Religious dogma among atheists”. I see Laura has made a list of all the things she can think to try and discredit Annie in front of viewers, without even understanding the definition of religion.

8) “You all call it winter solsticism, or atheism, or whatever the trendy way of referring to it is now.” – Condescending! “Trendy?” Laura has distorted reality. It may finally be acceptable in some circles to come out as an atheist, but Laura seems to say “trendy” as to imply people only say they’re atheists because it’s cool, without actually being so.

9) “Planned Parenthood [gets a huge infusion of tax payer money] too but I bet you don’t have a problem with that.” Not so much condescending, but inappropriate and illogical. Inappropriate because Laura is making accusations rather than just asking. And illogical because Planned Parenthood is not a religious institution. This portion of the ‘interview’ is about separation of CHURCH and State.

10) “Oook, we have a bout 300,000,000 people in the United States, you have 14,000 members? Ok…” Condescending! Completely! Now Laura is basically trying to compare penis size!

11) “Ohh, QUALITY numbers, oh that’s true. Numbers don’t matter.” CONDESCENDING! Making fun of the foundation because there aren’t many members? Not once has Annie Laurie said that anyone is considered correct because of popularity. And hey – maybe they only have 14,000 because people don’t know about the foundation. Did YOU know about the foundation? Maybe that’s why the FFrF is ADVERTISING! There is also a constant stream of people coming out admitting they have no belief in God, but when you have people like Laura Ingraham on TV making fun of atheists, it makes it more difficult to come out as an atheist.

12) “Did you grow up with any faith? I’m just curious, a personal question.” – Condescension thinly veiled! The tone of Laura’s voice reeks of evidence that she has NO bets that Annie Laurie grew up with any faith. Laura is trying to use that as an ad hominem argument against her.

13) “I got my cross on, I love it when I have my cross on during segments” – CONDESCENDING! Not so much because of the actual words, but because she’s saying this as a digression to someone off camera, all the while TALKING OVER the answer Annie Laurie is trying to give. This demonstration of not caring what Annie Laurie has to say is condescending to the validity of Annie Laurie’s answers..

14) “So a 6 year old child should make decisions for himself? Mmhm.” Condescending and a straw man argument. Annie Laurie said children should be able to grow up and make THESE decisions for themselves.” She included the word “these” to make the point that she was talking about the religious decisions that this discussion has been based on. She’s talking about kids making decisions on what they believe to be the truth of the world – not decisions about if they should smoke or not for example.

15) “Have you had any positive interaction with people of faith in your life?” CONDESCENDING, and the answer I gave in #12 applies here.

16) “We’ve heard that for a long time…” A bit condescending. Laura is swatting down this argument before Annie Laurie can discuss it fully, and talking over Annie Laurie to cut her off, as if what she has to say means nothing.

17) “And Merry…. Solstice.” Condescending. Laura ends the segment by saying this in a tone of voice that come across to the audience as, “Can you believe the dumb phrases these atheists say, and the dumb things they believe?”

18) FINALLY: There are plenty of moments where Laura smirks after her questions or giggles off camera. Completely condescending and insulting actions. It’s unprofessional! Apparently it’s acceptable for a host on a news network show to discuss they’re disagree, and to display bias – but only on Fox news do they take two steps further by 1) Disagreeing DURING the interview and 2) To do it condescendingly.

Gaylor is a dear woman but in interviews like this and even on her own podcast she comes across as too nervous and awkward. She shows composure here but she didn’t get her message across.

I’ve never heard of Laura Ingraham and she comes across as incredibly rude, condescending and obnoxious. Annie Laurie Gaylor is always impeccably polite. She’s not a pit bull temperament but is very well spoken when she’s not being interrupted and asked very dumb questions. (Also I can’t believe she’s 54 – she looks 20 years younger!)

So Laura has a chip on her shoulder, let it show and made an arse of herself. Well done her. Just what we expect from FOX personalities.

Oh, shit.
Ingraham is one fucking biased “reporter”.
I’m just an amateur reporter (school newspapers, blog, etc…), but even I know the basic rule: “If you ask a question, wait for the answer to come!” Even the Christian reporters in my country don’t cut a sentence in half just to insert their condescending opinion, or a “witty” remark. Dan summarized it pretty well. Ingraham was a.) condescending, b.) biased, c.) impolite, not worthy for the title “reporter”.
These are times I feel lucky to be a European. Are all interviews like this in America?

OK the link didn’t work… I’ll just paste it in this time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/19/oreilly-slams-ingraham-yo_n_398165.html

I actually think Annie Laurie did well. I would have taken a different tack by flipping the conversation on Ingraham, running down the clock with challenges to every false and misleading statement made and not answering a single question. But Annie’s coolness compared quite favorably to the utter hostility and grinch-like nastiness coming from Ingraham. Her answers were reasonable and she wasn’t distracted by the insults or overbearing commentary. I’m far too confrontational for that, but I think it gave a nice impression of us atheists as reasonable and polite, normal people.

“Oh that’s right, because a lot of people would care about the winter solstice if it weren’t for this thing called, uh, CHRISTIANTY.”

The stupidity in that statement is almost overwhelming. Winter Solstice celebrations have been traced back to as far as the late Neolitic Era, 9500 BCE… pretty sure Jesus wasn’t around in the Bronze Age.

But way to slip in a soundbyte there, Laura. Bill O’Reilly probably just creamed his pants.

I think a tremendous opportunity was missed. When Ann Coulter or whatever this vindictive bimbo was called said “What if a Catholic group put up a sign saying “I gave your winter solstice true meaning – Jesus” would you be offended?” my response would have been “This is precisely the point of our ads: It doesn’t matter if I were to find it offensive or not. I recognise that there are differences of opinions and I respect the right of other people to hold opinions that differ from my own.”

These ads aren’t targeted at the easily offended, they are targeted at people who don’t believe and are particularly marginalized at this time of year by religious bigots whom, contrary to the alleged spirit of the season, seem to think that this is a time of year that should not be shared.

I’d like to see this woman interview Christopher Hitchens.

Wow. That was beyond spew-inducing. I think Annie-Laurie did a good job, but on a Fox News interview, there’s never hope of not being shouted over. This is the network where being louder, not smarter or more well-prepared or rational, makes you the “victor”. I am so tired of hearing how put-upon Christians are in this nation. Oh, really? How can you claim you’re persecuted as a minority in the same breath you claim to be the majority? I just donated to the ffrf so they can count me among their numbers. I don’t see why expressing an opinion on whether or not there are magic sky fairies is controversial in 2010 in the USA. Is it just because far, far more people read billboards than books?

Gerusz wrote:

Ingraham is one fucking biased “reporter”.

Since first seeing Ingraham quite a few years ago (on ‘Politically Incorrect’ I think), I’ve always thought she was just an Ann Coulter-wannabe…..

this just proves that she hasn’t ‘evolved’ much from that.

Atheists need to stop going on FOXNEWS, at least as representatives of the atheist community.

They are booking people just to be punching bags. They do the same thing with every “liberal” guest they bring on. They either beat up the person for the entire segment, or they bring on a false representative, who doesn’t actually speak for their own supposed cause. It’s just red meat for their pig-ignorant American-Taliban elderly audience.

I agree, Hemant, that this was quite a painful clip to watch.

Ingrahmam does however do a wonderful job of living up to Keith Olberman’s moniker of Fox News as rather Fox ‘Noise’.

Gaylor did as good a job as I think anyone could have done in the situation. The ‘cards’, so to speak, are already stacked against you as soon as you enter the Fox ‘Noise’ room I would imagine.

I will add though that supporting billboard ads where you outrightly state that there is no God is counter productive in the grand scheme of things. Sure it gets you headlines and spots on television, but I think in the end it hurts your cause to advance simply free thinking and reason. Sticking with agnostic and neutral Winter Solstice-esque messages when discussing all things Christmas is a much safer bet in my humble opinion.

Thanks for the link to the video, and for this great website!

I’m surprised there are so few people who think that Annie Laurie did NOT do a good job.

I agree with the above comment that it seems quite useless to send atheist representatives to FOX. But if you ARE going to do so, you have to know who to send, and Annie Laurie Gaylor is NOT the person you want to send to the lion’s den.

I don’t think you can win an argument against an ignorant fool like Inghram anyway, but I’m definitely bothered my many of Annie Laurie’s answers:

1. She dodges the first question, (which was already mentioned above by Tony), and goes straight to talking points.

2. “Are these signs meant to provoke?”
“They’re meant to say something true. That they’re isn’t a God.”

Arrrgh! Ok. For years I’ve tried to fight the stigma that atheists do not claim to KNOW there is no god; that we just don’t believe in claims of the existence of gods. Now, here is a ‘representative’ of atheist beliefs, saying that there is no God, and it’s the truth. I know the FFRF likes to stir up controversy to get some attention. I realize it’s what you have to do these days to get on the news. But please, not at the expense of our rational arguments and reasons for our beliefs.
This is the main reason I don’t support the FFRF. They ride with the whole ‘There is no God’ theme that indeed makes them sound dogmatic.
That sign they put up in Washington embarrasses me as an atheist, and I wish they could stick to more positive, yet direct and controversial ads like the humanist bus ads.

Just my 2 cents.

Greetings from Finland!

Duke

Did anyone get a running count of the numerous logical and argumentative fallacies by Ingrham? I lost count after 12

Ugh. This was painful to watch. It was like watching Bill O’Reilly lambaste Richard Dawkins a while back.

What really irritates me about this sort of behavior is that Dawkins and Gaylor were *INVITED AS GUESTS* on these programs, actually believing they’d be given a chance to speak when the true intentions of O’Reilly and Ingraham were to just insult, belittle and ridicule them on national television so they and everyone who agrees with them can feel smug and superior to the godless atheists.

Do you think they’re ever going to figure out that when you’re cutting off and shouting down your invited guests, you’re not reporting anymore, you’re attacking? Do they realize they are showing the world what narrow-minded asses they are? Or do they do it on purpose because they think all their viewers are just ignorant sheeple who gleefully eat that crap up? Probably it’s all of the above.

I dunno. I see so many things that make me roll my eyes so much I’m afraid they’ll fall right out and roll away.

What did you expect Ingraham to do? People put signs up next to Christmas trees that basically said, “Your god is bullshit and you are an idiot.” I would be pissed off too.

As an avowed atheist, the only way I could possibly be as offended would be if I were walking in the mall, looking at a Christmas tree, and some Christian lunatic came up to me, yelled at me, and told me I wasn’t allowed to look at the tree because I’m a sinner, a pagan, a piece of shit, etc etc etc.

No one is offended by Friendly Atheists. What those people did, however, was decidedly mean-spirited and unnecessary.

The billboards were condescending and hateful.

I don’t have a problem with atheists with challenging laws they believe are unconstitutional but ridiculing and provoking believers does not advance the atheist cause.