You may also attribute this to Falwell, published in Reader's Digest:

Even Osama bin Laden's soul could be saved if he converted to Christianity, but he still would deserve to be killed.
Jerry Falwell to the Florida Baptist Pastor's Conference

This statement was later seconded by Pat Robertson

Rev. Jerry Falwell - Monday, December 03, 2001

BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the Personal Story segment tonight, the controversial cleric Reverend Jerry Falwell. Is the fallout over his remarks concerning "God may have punished the USA for our permissive society" -- is that fallout over? Reverend Falwell joins us now from Lynchburg, Virginia.

REV. JERRY FALWELL, LIBERTY UNIVERSITY CHANCELLOR:
Well...

O'REILLY: Hey, Reverend.

FALWELL: Well, the answer is it is because I didn't state what I meant to state. I -- there's a -- it's a long and very profound thing that you're talking judgment because the sleeping church, Second Chronicles 7:14, says, "If my people," and that's me, and that's -- and I didn't put myself in the church in the fact that our spiritual underbelly was exposed, but no one is to blame but the terrorists and, clearly, they -- they're getting their recompense for that.

O'REILLY: OK, but the problem here is that you have enemies, you know, and I know this real well because I'm building up...

FALWELL: You have a few of your own.

O'REILLY: I'm building up a resume of enemies that will break your back. And whenever you do anything controversial or you misspeak or you're misquoted or whatever it may be, they don't want to know the explanation. They just take it and bang you over the head with it.

FALWELL: Oh, yes. I --

O'REILLY: Did you see donations to your college drop off? Did you see hate mail pour in? Did you see any of that?

FALWELL: Yes to the latter. Lots of hate mail. We -- I mentioned --and shouldn't have -- gays, lesbians and other groups and so forth in the thing and, obviously, all took that -- they didn't hear anything I said after that, and I had it coming, and that's fine.

But -- no, contributions -- this has been our best year, and since September 11th, there was about a month when the mail wasn't moving, the anthrax thing had everybody frightened, and the flights weren't carrying mail, when everybody was affected, but since that time, it's...

O'REILLY: You're on track. OK. Now...

FALWELL: We're on track, yeah.

O'REILLY: ... Islam. We've had a lot of Imans on here and all of that, and -- but it's -- something about Islam still troubles me in the sense that there seems to be -- and there is this in the Old Testament as well -- a violent undercurrent to many of the passages in the Old Testament and in the Koran, not so much in the New Testament. Do you see Islam as a religion that is peaceful?

FALWELL: I have to be honest and tell you I have never read the Koran, so I -- for me to comment on what I don't know would be wrong.

Clearly, there have been some clerics who have commented on what they say is in the Koran about, for example, a man having -- keeping a whip in his house to beat his wife when necessary and -- and the put down of women.

The verse in -- I don't know what the location is, but allegedly that encourages killing of the infidels, i.e. Christians and Jews. That gives me pause.

But I -- blaming all Muslims for Osama bin Laden is like blaming all evangelicals for these -- those who ...

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY" No, I don't think...

FALWELL: ... bomb abortion clinics.

O'REILLY: ... anybody's blaming all Muslims, but it's a tone. You see -- look -- and it's similar to the tone of some fundamentalist Christians. There are some Christians around the world who believe that unless you accept Jesus Christ that you can't go to heaven.

So all the Jews, all the Muslims, all the Hindus, all the Buddhists -- they're toast. They ain't going, all right. It's an exclusionary faith, because unless you -- unless you think that the Jesus is the savior or believe that Jesus is the savior, you're not going to paradise.

Now, in the Islam religion, there is a strain of that as well. If you're not with us, you're an infidel.

Do you see the two parallels?

FALWELL: I do, but the difference is we -- Christianity doesn't encourage killing the infidels and encourages the...

O'REILLY: No.

FALWELL: ... evangelizing...

O'REILLY: But do you believe that unless you accept Jesus, you're not getting in?

FALWELL: Bill, I believe outright that -- as an evangelical Christian, I --

And I grew up with a father who was an agnostic, a dad, a grandfather who was an atheist, but through hearing a radio broadcast when I was a sophomore in college 50 years ago, I came to believe there's a God in heaven who had a son named Jesus Christ who died for the sins of the world, mine included, and I was born again in January of '52.

And I believe John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am thee way, thee truth, thee life. No man cometh to the father but by me," but I don't believe that's vindicative or in any way bigoted. I believe that's all inclusive, and that's why I spent 50 years sharing that gospel with the world.

O'REILLY: All right, but if I'm a Jewish guy and I don't believe that Jesus is God, can I go to heaven?

FALWELL: I don't believe anyone can go to heaven, gentile, Jew, black, white, red, or yellow, whatever, without knowing Christ as savior And that's what your Catholic Church basically...

O'REILLY: No, no.

FALWELL: ... believes, and that is exactly...

O'REILLY: No, no, no, no, no.

FALWELL: ... what Billy Graham preaches.

O'REILLY: No, no, no, no, no. They don't.

FALWELL: Come on, Bill.

O'REILLY: No, they've got a little loophole here, and I -- believe me, I know the finest Catholic scholars in the world, and the loophole...

FALWELL: I know you do.

O'REILLY: Here's the loophole. If you want to hear it, it's very interesting. And I believe this. I mean, I believe this to be true.

The Catholic theologians -- and not all of them, but the ones that I respect -- say that if you lead a life that mirrors the life of Jesus in the sense that you love God, whatever god, above all things, and you treat your neighbor as yourself, that's enough to get you into heaven or paradise, whatever you want to call it, because that's Jesus's philosophy.

So maybe you don't acknowledge that Jesus is God, but by living the way that he did, that's enough to get you there, and I believe that.

FALWELL: You'll never get Pope John Paul II to...

O'REILLY: Maybe I won't.

FALWELL: ... amen that.

O'REILLY: ... but I -- but I think that's an inclusionary...

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: I think that's an inclusionary religion, and that's a religion for all men.

FALWELL: I admire and respect your point of view, and there's nobody I admire any more on television than Bill O'Reilly, and I -- nobody sends more people to watch you because I like what you're doing, but you're wrong on that.

O'REILLY: All right. I'm -- I'd rather be wrong and inclusionary...

FALWELL: OK.

O'REILLY: ... than exclu...

FALWELL: I got you.

O'REILLY: See, I know some very, very, very good...

FALWELL: So do I.

(CROSSTALK)

O'REILLY: ... Jews and Buddhists, and I...

FALWELL: Oh, so do I.

O'REILLY: ... can't imagine that a god -- an all just god would ever not accept them into wherever that god...

FALWELL: Hey, it is not willing that any should perish. God loves everybody alike.

O'REILLY: That's right, and I can't image that that God would exclude anybody because they don't...

FALWELL: God is...

O'REILLY: ... because they don't have the -- you know, faith is a gift, and not everybody has it, Reverend, and I know some great Muslims, and I expect to see them there when -- if I -- well, I probably won't be there...

FALWELL: I certainly agree with...

O'REILLY: ... but -- anyway, you know what I'm talking about.

FALWELL: Oh, my friend, I...

O'REILLY: My last question is this.

FALWELL: OK.

O'REILLY: My last question is this, that you are a man who comes across as compassionate, but who is very rigid in his beliefs, and I see that in the Islamic world as well. Can there ever be a meeting of the minds?

FALWELL: I think this. I, as a minister of the gospel, love -- I can honestly sit here and say there's not a soul in this world that I don't love with God's love. That doesn't mean that I agree with everyone, and particularly on theological matters.

I happen to be a -- have been a great friend of John O'Connor's in New York, and John and I have done much work together. Both of us happen to believe that Christ is the only way to heaven.

But, at the same time, we work -- and so do Dr. Graham and so do millions of other born again believers -- with everybody in the world lovingly but sharing that saving gospel of Christ as the only way.

O'REILLY: All right, Reverend. Always good to see you. We appreciate your point of view.

FALWELL: Thank you, Bill.