202: William Herbert “Bill” Keller

Turns out that Bill Kaysing, the popularizer of the conspiracy theory that the moon landing was a hoax, went ahead and died himself out of an entry in our Wikipedia. Bummer. Thus we jump ahead to Bill Keller – no, not the executive editor of the NY Times Bill Keller, but the televangelist whose records – very predictably – include jailtime for financial acrobatics. After spending time in jail he attended Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. That combo prepares you better than anything to spread the word of God, it seems, and Keller has made a substantial following from his Tampa-based Live Prayer show.

Keller is fond of pointing out, often as sort of an afterthought, that people are on the highway (or “conveyor belt” to hell) – in particular Muslims (nicely unhinged, this one) and scientologists. Regarding scientologists, Keller said (apparently without a hint of self-awareness or irony) that he is “always amused at people who reject the story of Christ and God's simple plan to redeem fallen man, yet buy into the wild theology of cults like Scientology. Christianity requires that you use your God-given intelligence to make the choice to accept Christ as your Savior based on reality. Cults like Scientology requires [sic] that you abandoned all intelligence and blindly believe wild stories based on no facts.” Indeed.

Somewhat bizarrely, Keller emphasized his support for Mitt Romney in the 2008 elections, but in interviews pointed out that Romney, as a mormon, was also going straight to hell (“if you vote for Romney, you are voting for Satan”, Bill pointed out and promptly got himself in trouble with the tax exemption rules).

Keller is, among other things, convinced that Obama is not a True Christian™ because he is pro-choice and because (apparently) of his attitude towards Israel.

Diagnosis: Example of a pretty common breed of godbotting lunatics, but no less a lunatic for that. His particular influence is unclear, but he does apparently have some followers.