Posted on 10/15/2010 11:28:20 AM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- Christopher Hitchens -- bald from cancer treatments, speaking between doctor's appointments -- has a special disdain for deathbed religious conversions. Appearing before a group of journalists organized by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public life, he criticized the pressures put on Tom Paine to embrace Christianity and the malicious rumors of faith that followed Charles Darwin's demise. "I've already thought about this a great deal, thanks all the same," he explained. The idea "that you may be terrified" is no reason to "abandon the principles of a lifetime."
At this event -- a joint appearance with his brother Peter, a Christian -- Hitchens applied those principles with typical vigor. His arguments on the political dangers of religion are strong. In Turkey or Russia, he notes, "'faith-based' is not a preface to something positive." In Iraq or Iran, a "secular" ruler would be cause for celebration. The alliance of faith and power is often unholy.
But Christopher Hitchens is weaker on the personal and ethical challenge presented by atheism: Of course we can be good without God, but why the hell bother? If there are no moral lines except the ones we draw ourselves, why not draw and redraw them in places most favorable to our interests? Hitchens parries these concerns instead of answering them: Since all moral rules have exceptions and complications, he said, all moral choices are relative. Peter Hitchens responded, effectively, that any journey becomes difficult when a compass points differently at different times.
The best answer that Christopher Hitchens can offer to this ethical objection is himself. He is a sort of living refutation -- an atheist who is also a moralist. His politics are defined by a hatred of bullies, whether Kim Jong Il, Saddam Hussein or the mullahs in Iran. His affections are reserved for underdogs, from the Kurds to Salman Rushdie. The dreams of totalitarians are his nightmares -- what W.H. Auden described as: "A million eyes, a million boots in line / Without expression, waiting for a sign." Even Hitchens' opposition to God seems less of a theological argument than a revolt against celestial tyranny.
All this fire and bleeding passion would seem to require a moral law, even a holy law. But Hitchens produces outrage, empathy and solidarity without it.
At close range, the pitiless controversialist is actually kind to people he could easily humiliate -- a category to which most of us belong. The ferocious critic of Christianity accepts and seeks the company of Christians. Friendship is a particular talent. One review of his memoir, "Hitch-22," described it as "among the loveliest paeans to the dearness of one's friends ... I've ever read."
In earlier times, without derision or irony, this would have been called "humanism," a delight in all things human -- in wit and wine and good company and conversation and fine writing and debate of large issues. Hitchens' joy and juice put many believers of my acquaintance to shame -- people for whom religion has become a bloodless substitute for life. "The glory of God," said St. Irenaeus, "is man fully alive." Hitchens would hate the quote, but he proves the claim.
Hitchens' career, character and illness have led to an unexpected development -- unexpected, one suspects, particularly to him. While he remains unmellowed, he has seen a flood of affection. His disdain for Christianity, his animus for Islam, can still offend. But we admire the vivid, irreplaceable whole.
Hitchens has now been given his most astounding assignment, a visit to what he calls in a Vanity Fair article "the sick country." His account is raw, honest and impressive. He reports "a gnawing sense of waste" and the loss of "chest hair that was once the toast to two continents."
"To the dumb question 'Why me?' the cosmos barely bothers to return the reply: Why not?" He is, in some ways, a particularly reliable, clear-eyed witness -- unclouded by sentiment, free from comforting illusions, even illusions I view as truths. It is like watching a man assault Everest with only a can opener and a Q-tip. There is honor in the attempt. And the longer the assignment continues, the better for all of us.
At the Pew Forum, Christopher was asked a mischievous question: What positive lesson have you learned from Christianity? He replied, with great earnestness: the transience and ephemeral nature of power and all things human. But some things may last longer than he imagines, including examples of courage, loyalty and moral conviction.
“Through out most of the last 2000 years, that has not been the case.”
Most of 2000 years? Bull. Here and there and only after the church had become a center of power and begun attracting the usual suspects who themselves did not and do not represent the mass of Christians and Christianity itself.
Mr Hitchins: I do not bow to God because He frightens me or because He has promised me something. I bow to God because He knows what I do not know.
I’m beginning to think I should be. I just like covering my bets and I’ll bet on God every time.
Nope, that wasn’t the question. I was answering the question “Why is lessening the survival of the species an undesirable option?”
Nope. The concept being discussed was obviously the concept that you were implying I didn't have the critical thinking capability to understand. All other concepts are irrelevant.
If not, what objective standard are you using to define it an 'insult' to point that out?
The standard that it is rude to point out a perceived deficiency in someone that doesn't concern you directly and without offering something constructive to help them overcome that deficiency.
I didn't say it was 'the question'.
I said that the fact that this is 'how life works' does not mean that lessening the survival of a species is an undesirable option. That is a non sequitur.
OK, so far so good.
"The concept being discussed was obviously the concept that you were implying I didn't have the critical thinking capability to understand. All other concepts are irrelevant."
You have already admitted that there are concepts that are beyond your critical-thinking ability.
"The standard that it is rude to point out a perceived deficiency in someone that doesn't concern you directly and without offering something constructive to help them overcome that deficiency."
I asked for an objective standard, you supplied a subjective one. If you believe that gravity doesn't apply to you in a particular instance and I point out that it does, how is that not constructive?
“Yes, but who says it’s wrong to punch someone in the face just because it’s unpleasant?”
—I would say that (in general) it is wrong to punch someone in the face because we don’t like to be punched in the face and, because of empathy, we generally don’t want others to be punched in the face - and thus the feeling that it’s “wrong” to do so.
And so morality comes primarily from empathy.
Actually, the very fact that you ask the question implies that you already realize this.
One wouldn’t hear a Jew ask a non-Jew “without the Torah how would we know that it is wrong to eat shellfish but not fish?” or a Hindu ask a non-Hindu “without the Hindu scriptures how would we know that it is wrong to kill cows?” as arguments in favor of the Torah or Hindu scripture. In both cases they realize that the ‘nonbeliever’ likely doesn’t share such values, and so the questions wouldn’t make sense.
However, they may ask nonbelievers questions like “how would we know that murder is wrong...” in favor of their religious writings, with the implication being that we need their religious writings to have morality and know right from wrong. But in these cases the questions equally make no sense since they wouldn’t have asked such questions without already assuming that nonbelievers DO have morality and know right from wrong independent of the religious writings. The questioner is appealing to the universal innate empathy we all share.
In other words, the implication of the question contradicts what the questioner must already assume in asking the question.
The question assumes that rules regarding how we treat each other (i.e. morality) is something that we all care deeply about and generally agree on. Why do we all care about morality? Because we all have empathy. That we all care about morality is the reason it exists.
I’m guessing you just took a logic class, you have a new hammer and everything in the world looks like a nail. I don’t understand the point you are trying to make, other than to be antagonistic for no reason. Maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand your superior intellect, but it seems to me that nothing you have said has anything to do with anything that I have said. I see no reason to engage you any further. Feel free to claim victory if it makes you happy.
See Mr B's post 51.
Without God, right and wrong do not exist.
Where do you get that? I never blamed Christians, I said, that during the holocaust, a Jew wouldnt feel safe coming across that same group of men. Why? because it was not uncommon for Christian Germans to turn in their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis.
The Einstein quote is from a 1940 Time magazine article. It is not a direct quote from Einstein. In 1947 he distanced himself from that quote by saying he did have some praises of the Church in the early rise of Hitler, much earlier than 1940, but the quote greatly overstated his earlier statement. But Einstein left Germany in 1933 due to Hitlers rise, so he wasnt there for the persecutions. So honestly...what does he know?
BTW, did you know Muslim extremists now kill more people each year than were killed in the entire Inquisition?
So what...tell that to the Jews who were burned alive, terrorized and had to flee for their lives. Are you trying to minimize the evil of the inquisition?
Christian countries in general and America in particular are the only countries where Jews have ever been able to live in peace, and Jews once again have a nation of their own because Christian nations made it happen.
G-d made it happen, in spite of the Christian nations. In the 1920 San Remo conference, Israel was granted their historic homeland from the sea to the Jordan river, the League of Nations ratified it but the Christian nations then reneged on the deal, even though it is technically still binding to this day. It took the horrors of the holocaust for the Christian nations to relent and agree to a Jewish homeland. Is that your idea of Christian support? Or the boycotting of arms that the US did to Israel?
No, you are whitewashing history. The church has a lot of Jewish blood on its hands as well as a long history of abuse. Do you deny the Christian atrocities? Your Jesus would not agree with you. Here is a Christian article for you. History
I respect your opinion. I don't agree.
“The church has a lot of Jewish blood on its hands”
Your highway only goes one way. But in reality it went both ways.
I have zero problems with Athiests. I am an agnostic, non religionist. I came to that through lots of contemplation and thought. I have no problems with anyone that is religious, that is their choice. You can be a fine, decent and moral athiest or agnostic, just as someone that professes to adhere to a religion can be a completely immoral bastard.
Its the individual, not the faith, or lack of faith.
Feel free to elaborate...
Religion (Christianity) is the opposite of social Darwinism which is the atheist’s Bible. Christianity was derided by the Atheists (and Hitler) because Christianity gave intrinsic value (as the child of God) to even the weakest and poorest among us—the exact opposite of all societies who never gave value to the servants and slaves and killed the weak (Spartans). Only religion gives value to everyone—never Atheists, who (if they are true to their religion), will always say the ends justifies the means. (This doesn’t happen in Catholic Theology).
Also D’Souza debating Hitchens, said that Singer who advocates killing born babies up to a year is the true Atheist (since Hitchens doesn’t agree with this),
Hitchens had to agreed that there was no reason in Atheist religion to deny the right of parents to decide to kill their babies if that was a better situation for them. The only reason Hitchen “seems” moral (by Christian standards) is because he was raised with Christian values in his formative years. That is the only reason Atheists in America seem moral is because they have been formed by Christian ethics. The paradigm is now changing under Obama and the Christian values are rapidly being completely thrown out of society, so we will soon see the type of Wiemar Republic that no Christian values form.
It has always been very UGLY and chaotic (slavery/no women rights), short life span societies.
Talking about atrocities without historical perspective is not historical.
There were some atrocities committed by Christians on Jews in the Crusades, that is obvious. But most were committed in 1) unsanctioned “peasant crusades” or 2) in the perspective of warfare of the time period.
During the First Crusade in Jerusalem for instance, Jewish men fought side by side with Muslims against Christians. During this time period, when the walls were breached there was no yielding or mercy. The victors were hacked to death.
If the Muslim/Jewish defenders would have defeated the Christians, it would have been Christians hacked to death. not really an atrocity in that time period, just the way it was.
Obviously during the smaller battles on the way into Jerusalem on the outskirts, there were probably skirmishes where Jews defeated Christians and hacked Christians to death. History doesn’t account for these small details, but they happen nonetheless.
Which would make you wrong yet again.
"Maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand your superior intellect, but it seems to me that nothing you have said has anything to do with anything that I have said."
Or maybe avoiding non sequitur isn't something that is important to you.
"I see no reason to engage you any further."
Which brings us back full-circle to my initial post which offended you so.
"Feel free to claim victory if it makes you happy."
Feel free to ignore the logical fallacies in your 'arguments' when it suits your purposes.
"I’m guessing you just took a logic class, you have a new hammer and everything in the world looks like a nail." Which would make you wrong yet again.
Yes, I didn't actually believe that. I was making a sarcastic comment regarding your naive misuse of logic terms.
"Maybe I’m just not smart enough to understand your superior intellect, but it seems to me that nothing you have said has anything to do with anything that I have said." Or maybe avoiding non sequitur isn't something that is important to you.
It wasn't at the time. I didn't realize that I was engaged in a formal debate. I was making conversation. But if you insist on this silly technicality, it wasn't a non-sequitur, and here's why. I was expressing an opinion. You see, a debate using formal logic requires that both parties begin their suppositions from the same axiomatic system. This wasn't the case in our discussion, because I was speaking from the world view of the non-existence of God and the process of evolution as fact, which I believe to be true, while MrB was speaking from the world view of the existence of God-as-creator as fact. The only way for any logical proposition to be valid would be for me to assume that the existence of God was irrelevant to the discussion, or to backtrack to a higher level debate over the existence of God before engaging in the debate over whether a non-believer can be moral, which would have taken more time than I cared to invest and would likely have been an exercise in futility. Since we were not starting from the same axiomatic system of suppositions, the entire concept of logical fallacy was meaningless in our discussion. I did not intend for the two statements you called a non-sequitur to be consecutive steps in a propositional calculus. I was stating an opinion, then stating another opinion. From my perspective we were simply having a conversation, which is what people with actual social skills do sometimes when they wish to talk to each other and learn from each other in a non-confrontational way. You'll understand when you get to Logic 102. (Yes, I know you aren't actually taking logic classes. Recognizing sarcasm is a valuable skill. You should look into it.)
"I see no reason to engage you any further." Which brings us back full-circle to my initial post which offended you so.
I'm not sure I see how.
"Feel free to claim victory if it makes you happy." Feel free to ignore the logical fallacies in your 'arguments' when it suits your purposes.
I feel I've covered this point sufficiently already.
Now, if you wish to engage me in formal debate, please do me the honor of expressing exactly what topic you wish to debate rather than attacking me from behind.
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