God is greater than Christopher Hitchens ( A Rabbi responds to the book -- "God is Not Great")

Jerusalem Post ^ | 06/03/2007 | rabbi Schmuley Boteach

[Zionist Conspirator]

When I saw the title of this article I thought I would find a response to Hitchens by Rabbi Danile Lapin or perhaps Rabbi 'Aryeh Spero. But Smuley Boteach??? I'm absolutely flabbergasted!

I've never been a big Shmuley Boteach fan. He's been "Michael Jackson's rabbi," has written a book on "kosher sex," and at one time attacked Fundamentalist Protestantism as having absolutely nothing in common while co-authoring a book with a "new age" personality on how much Judaism and the "new age" allegedly do have in common (in fairness, he later came to praise Fundamentalist Protestants for their defense of Biblical morality).

Boteach is a maverick, and I'm still not going to join his fan club (I suspect he's still going to come out of left field a lot). But I'll tell you this much: my opinion of him just when up a great deal!

For taking this stand, yeyasher kochakha, Shmuley Boteach!

[batmast]

“When a Man stops believing in God he doesn’t then believe in nothing, he believes anything.” -G.K. Chesterton

“I Don’t Believe in Atheists.” -Chris Hedges

[donna]

But go ahead, keep making conservatives look like teenagers sniggering about “homos.”

Well, I'm no teenager so I don't snigger about them. I think of them more as big time sinners. And if you're embarrassed to be a conservative, Hillary wants you.

[onedoug]

Hugh Hewitt recently hosted the Great God Debate between Hitchens and Mark D Roberts.

I was amazed that when science came up neither of them knew enough to be able to discuss it at any level.

That's a shame because this is where Hitchens' arguments break down.

Guillermo Gonzalez & Jay W Richards, The Privileged Planet

[perfect stranger]

Yes, that’s the guy.

[tumblindice]

I’m reading his book now. Finished the intro. and the first chapter. It’s very good so far, as good as his `Why Orwell Matters’.
But his photo in the back could be a lot better. He looks slightly demented, or maybe it’s just a `lazy eye’.

[joebuck]

I admire Hitchens to the extent that he is an atheist with the courage of his convictions. He rejects dogma on the left as quickly as he rejects Christian dogma that does not comport with his intellect. His refusal go along with whatever is current intellectually fashionable among the elite is as refreshing as it is rare among the self righteous annointed ones. There is nothing sadder than a fine intellect not gifted with the blessing of spiritual discernment.

[trek]

Quite nicely put joebuck, thanks for posting it.

[Blue Highway]

Hugh Hewitt recently hosted the Great God Debate between Hitchens and Mark D Roberts. I was amazed that when science came up neither of them knew enough to be able to discuss it at any level. That's a shame because this is where Hitchens' arguments break down. Guillermo Gonzalez & Jay W Richards, The Privileged Planet

I listened to some of the program when Hitchens was on Hugh Hewitt's program. Hugh was posing questions and allowing Hitchen's to respond, but he wouldn't give a rebuttal. I was a little disappointed as well. It would have been better if he had Lee Strobel on as he was a one time atheist that now knows the truth and uses science to dispell evolution. That would have been a great debate.

[Blue Highway]

There is nothing sadder than a fine intellect not gifted with the blessing of spiritual discernment.

I agree 100% Joe Buck, well stated! I'm ashamed to say my bible verse recall ability has gotten rusty, but there is a passage that sums it up that those that do not believe will not know the truth of God or even understand the Bible until God reveals it to them. They will be blind to the truth literally and figuratively. Hitchens could word by word dissect the bible, but without the discernment from the Holy Spirit his understanding or lack therof, would be fruitless until God reveals it to him. I pray that those like Hitchens aren't too far removed from God to ever find Him or hear Him. I guess we could only hope he may humble himself at some point and truly know there IS a God.

[Abcdefg]

"Hugh Hewitt recently hosted the Great God Debate between Hitchens and Mark D Roberts." Link right here.

"CH: Very well, and I wish great luck to your friends, and there are many other Christians I know who do marvelous work in North Korea, for example, where the people are trying to escape from a prison slave state there, and also for keeping the issue of Darfur in front of the public. I think the Evangelical movement deserves a great deal of credit.

How very intolerant of Hitchens!

[Christian4Bush]

bttt

[cammie]

Ah, another one of those clever responses that make FR such a great place lately: “Don’t agree with me? You must be a liberal!”

How about the poster who called Christopher Hitchens did his research before calling someone a “homo” like a teenager would, with no evidence? I don’t have any problem with calling a spade a spade, but when you call someone something with no evidence, just making a personal attack, you’re not speaking like a conservative.

[donna]

Go ahead, keep making conservatives look like teenagers sniggering about simple mistakes.

[cammie]

It’s a simple mistake to call someone gay when it’s easy to google it and find out otherwise? Otherwise, yes, I will keep calling out people when they say things that are demonstrably false, because that kind of talk harms the conservative movement.

[GiovannaNicoletta]

bookmark for later

[donna]

I beat you to it and I did it with dignity.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"..Whereas the Bible establishes the infinite value of every human life, healthy or diseased, no less an authority than Francis Crick, Nobel laureate and co-discoverer of DNA, suggested that babies should be considered alive only two days after birth, during which time they could be examined for defects. If defects were found that were sufficiently deleterious, the infant could presumably be eliminated with impunity because it had not yet become alive..."

This is horrific, but not much different from partial birth abortion. If one takes a purely logical and not spiritual and religious view of life a lot of people will need to die as a matter of convenience and efficiency and it does not take a Hitler to start the process.

[tyke]

The problem with using Hawking as an example of what supposedly might have happened under a non-Judeo-Christian regime, is that Hawking was perfectly healthy at birth, and continued to be so well into adulthood. Nobody would have wanted to euthanize him.

He is an exceptional man, not only for his brainpower, but because he has lived with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) for decades longer than about 99% of other sufferers.

The author also makes the typical assumption that only alternative to a Christian society is to live in some sort of atheistic dictatorship. Several countries in Western Europe can barely be called Christian these days, including Scandinavia and the UK. In fact, most of those societies have been overwhelmingly secular for decades now. Yet somehow democracy continues to thrive in those places despite all the scare stories you hear from the Christian fundamentalists in the US.

[KC Burke]

I think one of the strengths of the manner in which the article is written is that he doesn't minimalize of denigrate Hitchens in making the author's responses.

That being said, the Hitchen's central aversion to religion in general brings to mind the T. S. Elliot quote:

"The world is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time; so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and to save the world from suicide."
T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture

Hitchens, as child of socialism, still attempts, while facing the collapse of communism, to apply the same Marxist dialectic and scientific rationality to all questions.

As conservatives, our first regard is to recognize the value of what we have inherited in western civilization. Hitchens begins without that predisposition and goes greatly astray.

Ex-stalinists Whittaker Chambers and Frank Meyers both came to admire the Permanent Things and became conservatives. Some, like Hitchens, just retreat to Trotsky and retrench the dogma. I am reading an intersting book on the myth of Che and his actual impact on decimating Cuba. It is revealing how many fawning quotes of reverence Che has had offered for him over the years by Chris Hitchens.

It is not necessary to be anti-religion, even if one is a non-believer, to understand the dangers of pure rationality to good government. Hayek is the perfect example.