Christopher Hitchens

I'm of the mindset that it's inappropriate for anyone to think I should have a stance on the reality of a fictitious character.

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:08 PM, Z_B_Z said:

im tired of people framing the debate as "you either believe that an old man in the sky created you, and rules you, or you believe in nothing." such an appalling lack of imagination, on both sides. life is infinitely weirder and more complex than the models we create to interpret it. "the map is not the territory."

Yes. It's amazing how atheists scientists base their argument on the "omnipotent and all-loving old man" conception of God. When in fact it is more likely that the ontology of "GOd" is a lot more complicated than this.

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:08 PM, Z_B_Z said:

im tired of people framing the debate as "you either believe that an old man in the sky created you, and rules you, or you believe in nothing." such an appalling lack of imagination, on both sides. life is infinitely weirder and more complex than the models we create to interpret it. "the map is not the territory."

atheism does not equal nihilism. there are plenty of things one can believe in other than gods. also, faith and belief aren't synonyms. faith is belief without evidence or in the face of contradicting evidence.

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:15 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:08 PM, Z_B_Z said:

im tired of people framing the debate as "you either believe that an old man in the sky created you, and rules you, or you believe in nothing." such an appalling lack of imagination, on both sides. life is infinitely weirder and more complex than the models we create to interpret it. "the map is not the territory."

 

atheism does not equal nihilism. there are plenty of things one can believe in other than gods. also, faith and belief aren't synonyms. faith is belief without evidence or in the face of contradicting evidence.

So what does " I believe in God" entail ? That I have a proof of God's existence ?

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:14 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

When in fact it is more likely that the ontology of "GOd" is a lot more complicated than this.

not a fan of occam's razor, huh?

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:15 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:08 PM, Z_B_Z said:

im tired of people framing the debate as "you either believe that an old man in the sky created you, and rules you, or you believe in nothing." such an appalling lack of imagination, on both sides. life is infinitely weirder and more complex than the models we create to interpret it. "the map is not the territory."

 

atheism does not equal nihilism. there are plenty of things one can believe in other than gods. also, faith and belief aren't synonyms. faith is belief without evidence or in the face of contradicting evidence.

i wasnt trying to imply that atheism equals nihilism, i was just commenting on what i perceive to be a lack of imagination.

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:17 PM, the anonymous forumite said:

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:15 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:08 PM, Z_B_Z said:

im tired of people framing the debate as "you either believe that an old man in the sky created you, and rules you, or you believe in nothing." such an appalling lack of imagination, on both sides. life is infinitely weirder and more complex than the models we create to interpret it. "the map is not the territory."

 

atheism does not equal nihilism. there are plenty of things one can believe in other than gods. also, faith and belief aren't synonyms. faith is belief without evidence or in the face of contradicting evidence.

 

So what does " I believe in God" entail ? That I have a proof of God's existence ?

not necessarily. if your belief isn't based on evidence, then it's faith.

nm

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:14 PM, wake said:

I'm of the mindset that it's inappropriate for anyone to think I should have a stance on the reality of a fictitious character.

And yet you idolise some dude who's dedicated a large chunk of his life to telling everyone that the character isn't real...

Anyway I'm done with this topic. Poor Christopher Hitchens. God bless him.

  On 3/23/2011 at 7:31 PM, wake said:

  On 3/23/2011 at 7:03 PM, luke viia said:

So after watching that video, I gathered that Hitchens believes:

 

1. Religion is the source of all tyranny, and

2. Religion springs from a "desire to be a slave."

 

To anyone here that's read his books - is that accurate?

That's an unfair assumption, wouldn't you say? Or was he painted to be that way in that interview? He's a journalist and he's got books on a wide range of topics. Most everything I've read by him has not had to do with religion.

I'm not sure if it was unfair since I'm not familiar with his other works, that's why I had to ask... but the two points I listed are direct quotes from Hitchens in that 60 Minutes clip at 7:50 (whoops excuse me, his first direct quote is "the belief in the divine is the origin of all dictatorship", and then at 8:15 Kroft says of him, "he contends that religion is the source of all tyranny") and then at 8:25 or so Hitchens says (in a debate about religion) "it is the wish to be a slave... it is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep"... it's those sorts of quotes that cause me to believe he is only partially understanding what he speaks out against.. but I'll stress again that I don't know much about the guy.

  Quote

edit: Also, while there are many things I disagree with Hitch about, this is definitely not one of them:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2007/01/hitchens200701

lol

What other writings of his are, in your opinion, worth a look?

  On 3/23/2011 at 10:30 PM, jim said:

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:14 PM, wake said:

I'm of the mindset that it's inappropriate for anyone to think I should have a stance on the reality of a fictitious character.

 

And yet you idolise some dude who's dedicated a large chunk of his life to telling everyone that the character isn't real...

 

Anyway I'm done with this topic. Poor Christopher Hitchens. God bless him.

First of all, religion and god are two different things. One is real and the other is not.

Simply because I revere someone does not mean that I agree with or am responsible for everything that they say or do. I don't see what religion has to offer society, aside from setting a general moral guideline for those who would otherwise be raping anything with a hole. I was raised without religion and my moral compass is better adjusted than most religious people I meet. The shit side of religion far outweighs the positive. I give my complete unwavering support for the abolishment of all religion. Your crutch, the corporate crutch, the political crutch, the whole bag. I'd like to see people try to get by walking on both their feet for once.

As for my original statement, let me clarify. For those of us who don't believe in ghosts, we are not required to label ourselves as apoltergeistists. It's not expected for those of us who believe the earth has not been visited by extraterrestrials to identify ourselves as aufologists. So I don't understand why I should have to market myself as an atheist and suffer derision from people who say atheists are just as bad as religious fundamentalists. I don't understand the necessity of god being in my vocabulary any more than Harry Potter or Aslan. The only reason god is a part of my vocabulary is because he/she/it/they are/is the main character(s) in the most well-known novels man has written. I would be overwhelmed if I faced the task of denying my belief in every fictional character anyone has ever dreamed up. Hopefully you can more fully grasp the meaning of my original statement now.

Anyway, seeing as you're done with this topic...I'll be nice and let you have the last word. Poor Christopher Hitchens. Let us all get down on our knees, light some candles, point our faces towards the ceiling, and rattle off a few lines to the giant man in the sky. Maybe that will cure his cancer. God bless him.

About abolishing religion, what do you define as religion? Is it the institutional religions or all forms of spirituality? I am of the opinion that institutionalized or any other form of a call to the supernatural has no place in the workings of a modern society and it should strictly be a personal matter.

The problem is that religion is so ingrained in our society, be it only as a way to create social unity or as a framework to how society should work. It just seems to me the whole idea of eradicating religion from this world, as proposed by Dawkins et al., is simply a unrealistic goal. Removing the church influence from social and educational matters is one step, but it does not stop a person or a group with a religious agenda from influencing it. Here in Finland we have a state-church and for some reason it has for example a say in what sort of curriculum there should be in primary school but otherwise very limited power, meanwhile in the USA there is no state-church and the religious factions have immense power by simply greasing the right persons and groups. The best thing IMO we could do is to make churches/religions as any other cultural institution or club and stop handling them with silk gloves, they surely didn't treat anyone with silkgloves when they were in power. To remove superstition completely from the human experience is simply unrealistic and impossible.

It seems to me it's simply a trait of being human to have a belief in something higher or if not that but somehow anthropomorphisize the world around us in some degree.

and English is your second language, azatoth. Excellent post!

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:06 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

if any of you had grown up in the southern u.s. you would realize why we need people like dawkins and hitchens. try living your life surrounded by people who believe in magic and consider willful ignorance a virtue. the religious people you've dealt with probably don't actually believe most of the stuff in their holy book. the people I'm surrounded by believe every word of it even if they they haven't actually read it.

so are you saying there's a higher concentration of stupid people incapable of thinking for themselves in southern US... so basically they'll believe anything they're told if it's done repeatedly and forcefully enough. if you manage to disuade them out of their faith into believing some other doctrine is it really that big a deal? i mean they're idiots right? if hitchen spouts that mother thereasa was evil these fools shout "amen!". what's the difference?

ugh...half of you are addressing Ignosticism!! look it up!!!

though I agree when I try to explain my viewpoint people say "so you are atheist then."

  On 3/24/2011 at 2:21 PM, keltoi said:

  On 3/23/2011 at 9:06 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

if any of you had grown up in the southern u.s. you would realize why we need people like dawkins and hitchens. try living your life surrounded by people who believe in magic and consider willful ignorance a virtue. the religious people you've dealt with probably don't actually believe most of the stuff in their holy book. the people I'm surrounded by believe every word of it even if they they haven't actually read it.

 

so are you saying there's a higher concentration of stupid people incapable of thinking for themselves in southern US... so basically they'll believe anything they're told if it's done repeatedly and forcefully enough. if you manage to disuade them out of their faith into believing some other doctrine is it really that big a deal? i mean they're idiots right? if hitchen spouts that mother thereasa was evil these fools shout "amen!". what's the difference?

they were indoctrinated starting when they were toddlers. they continue to believe out of fear of death and social rejection. teach them critical thinking instead and let them decide what they believe for themselves. most of them already think mother teresa was evil for being catholic.

  On 3/24/2011 at 5:56 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

ugh...half of you are addressing Ignosticism!! look it up!!!

 

though I agree when I try to explain my viewpoint people say "so you are atheist then."

 

agnosticism concerns knowledge. atheism concerns belief. most atheists are agnostic in that they concede that absolute knowledge of whether god exists or not is probably not possible. but then, absolute knowledge isn't a very useful concept. I don't have absolute knowledge that unicorns don't exist, but that doesn't keep me from not believing in them.

  On 3/24/2011 at 6:02 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

  On 3/24/2011 at 5:56 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

ugh...half of you are addressing Ignosticism!! look it up!!!

 

though I agree when I try to explain my viewpoint people say "so you are atheist then."

 

 

agnosticism concerns knowledge. atheism concerns belief. most atheists are agnostic in that they concede that absolute knowledge of whether god exists or not is probably not possible. but then, absolute knowledge isn't a very useful concept. I don't have absolute knowledge that unicorns don't exist, but that doesn't keep me from not believing in them.

with an "I"

  webster said:

Definition of ATHEISM

 

1

archaic : ungodliness, wickedness

2

a : a disbelief in the existence of deity

  webster said:

Definition of DEITY

 

1

a : the rank or essential nature of a god : divinity

  webster said:

Definition of GOD

 

1

capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: as

a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe

This is the nature in which I identify as an atheist. If you told me Roger has twelve cocks that spit magic laser beams which turn any object into a family of rabbits, not having known Roger I don't necessarily have proof that he doesn't exist but to me it's a pragmatic decision just to assume that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about and I shouldn't consider what you're saying as an option, especially if you're just going off of a book which has no scientific or factual basis at all, and in my opinion can only be regarded intelligently as a moral fairy tale.

There may be a golden teapot filled with alien cum orbiting the sun. But.......no, there isn't.

Atheism in the most general sense is NOT the rejection of all spirituality.

  On 3/24/2011 at 6:42 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

  On 3/24/2011 at 6:02 PM, nene multiple assgasms said:

  On 3/24/2011 at 5:56 PM, Smettingham Rutherford IV said:

ugh...half of you are addressing Ignosticism!! look it up!!!

 

though I agree when I try to explain my viewpoint people say "so you are atheist then."

 

 

agnosticism concerns knowledge. atheism concerns belief. most atheists are agnostic in that they concede that absolute knowledge of whether god exists or not is probably not possible. but then, absolute knowledge isn't a very useful concept. I don't have absolute knowledge that unicorns don't exist, but that doesn't keep me from not believing in them.

 

with an "I"

oh, I thought that was just a typo lol. I just skimmed the wikipedia page on ignosticism, and I tend to agree that you need to define exactly what you mean by "god" before you can accept or reject it. this has a lot to do with the goalpost moving that many theists do when new evidence comes to light. they just adjust their definition of god to deal with the evidence, and so the concept of god becomes less and less meaninful.

Being an atheist is like being a time traveller who has come back to the past to be tortured by idiots. And on top of it motherfucker has to get hit with cancer.

This is all a fucking retarded game with no point. Fuck existence

Christopher Hitchens was scheduled to appear at the American Atheist convention, but had to cancel because of his illness. He sent this letter instead.

  Quote

Dear fellow-unbelievers,

 

Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death. Nobody ever wins this argument, though there are some solid points to be made while the discussion goes on. I have found, as the enemy becomes more familiar, that all the special pleading for salvation, redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before. I hope to help defend and pass on the lessons of this for many years to come, but for now I have found my trust better placed in two things: the skill and principle of advanced medical science, and the comradeship of innumerable friends and family, all of them immune to the false consolations of religion. It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstitition. It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.

 

That essential sense of decency is outraged every day. Our theocratic enemy is in plain view. Protean in form, it extends from the overt menace of nuclear-armed mullahs to the insidious campaigns to have stultifying pseudo-science taught in American schools. But in the past few years, there have been heartening signs of a genuine and spontaneous resistance to this sinister nonsense: a resistance which repudiates the right of bullies and tyrants to make the absurd claim that they have god on their side. To have had a small part in this resistance has been the greatest honor of my lifetime: the pattern and original of all dictatorship is the surrender of reason to absolutism and the abandonment of critical, objective inquiry. The cheap name for this lethal delusion is religion, and we must learn new ways of combating it in the public sphere, just as we have learned to free ourselves of it in private.

 

Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations.

 

As the heirs of a secular revolution, American atheists have a special responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution that patrols the boundary between Church and State. This, too, is an honor and a privilege. Believe me when I say that I am present with you, even if not corporeally (and only metaphorically in spirit…) Resolve to build up Mr Jefferson’s wall of separation. And don’t keep the faith.

 

Sincerely

 

Christopher Hitchens

lol, he just doesn't get it, does he. But people like him are necessary. It's like someone from our grandparent's generation going on and on about the Holocaust. They may be stuck in time, but they serve as a useful reminder I guess, as evil never leaves the world, and neither does religious extremism so...

just wanted to stop back in and say ive watched/listened to a ton of his debates, and read two of his books and a few other articles, and although I am an Ignostic, he will be dearly missed.

Its a shame about his position on the wars though.