[From Houston Chronicle]
Christopher Hitchens is very smart, very well-read, very outspoken and, more often than necessary, very obnoxious. All this is fine if you enjoy hearing him defend the Iraq war, but perhaps less so when he mounts a caustic attack on organized religion, as he does in his best-selling new book. A formidable debater, Hitchens recently appeared on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes, managing the difficult trick of offending the liberal Colmes and reducing the conservative Hannity to stuttering incoherence.
Hitchens arguments are brilliant and the language marvelously crafted. If one is disposed to his point of view, it’s a terrific read. Certainly it’s the best of the recent assaults on organized religion from Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel C. Dennett.
He says he is not an atheist. He is, he says, an “anti-theist,”a man who vehemently opposes the concept of God as defined by the three dominant Western religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
That God, Hitchens argues, resembles the despotic ruler of a totalitarian state, monitoring our every thought, judging every action and keeping us in thrall not just in this life but for all eternity in a heaven (if you’re lucky enough to get there) that resembles North Korea. Since Hitchens believes this God is a Santa Claus-like fiction invented by human beings, he stands in amazement at our ability to make life harder than it has to be.
Although Hitchens does his best to demolish the claims of religions, he is very much a believer — in what he calls “a finer tradition.” It’s the tradition of Socrates, Galileo, James Mill, David Hume, Kant, Descartes, Spinoza, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Charles Darwin and Albert Einstein, who wrote: “If something is in me which can be called religious, then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.”
Read about it here.
[From me]
I wonder if Jefferson, Paine, Socrates Darwin, Einstein and the others died for Hitchen’s sins?
What do you think?
Filed under: atheists
Glad to see you did check out the news feed, Kevin. I knew you would find an awful lot of interest, though I wasn’t certain you’d appreciate the POV. Many times I have seen a story there, and then the week later I have found it linked to here.
As far as dying for sin, perhaps if religion had not invented sin without offense, no one would have had to die at all. Joking aside, I really have no idea what your point was supposed to be.
I got the point.
Do you think that Christopher Hutchins learned what he may “think” he knows about Christ, from those of us who were once pharisee’s?
Before my “conversion” I went to church, and tried to follow all the rules. I can see where someone would draw parallels to Santa Claus and get disgusted with organized religion. I was there.
But for the grace of God I’d still be there.
Christopher Hutchins I am praying.
In Christ
Andrew \o/
Titus 2:13
Hitchens contention is more along the lines of: “How could Christ have died for our sins, when supposedly he also did not die at all?”
I will agre that Hitchens has a point in the self destructive and hateful versions of religious fundamentalism, which a person can reasonably contend is a perversion of the gospel altogether. For example, any number of people I know who buy into premillenial eschatology seem to be welcoming all sorts of awful events thinking that the anti-Christ brings Jesus back sooner.
However, by citing the great thinkers such as Shakespeare, Dostoevsky or Tolstoy, Hitchens undercuts his entire position–as they wrestle with the implications of the Christian faith. The funny part is that my premillenial buddies don’t read those folks and accept that Hitchens’ critique makes more sense than it does.
So in that Hitchens is attacking fundamentalism, which isn’t faith at all, he has a great point. The blanket indictment of the Christian faith doesn’t hold up.
I do not think Hitchens deigns to debate the minutiae of specific religious mythology. Whether Jesus was crucified or whether he danced the cha-cha, whether the Bible says we are all sinners or it says we have all inherited ten million dollars in Nigeria is completely irrelevant.
Addressing his arguments from the perspective of a *specific* religion completely misses the point. By doing this, it sounds as though folks think his criticism is completely valid… as applied to other folks. But MY religion is different, because of the principle of divine obfuscation or the gift of everlasting ineffability or what-have-you. This strikes me as a form of the True Scottsman argument. “Well, yes, Maclean WOULD say that. But a TRUE Scottsman…”
Having said that, I’m more interested in talking about Santa Claus! Does no one else find this to be an incredibly cruel tradition? Does no one else worry about what the lessons learned from it are? Relatedly, is anyone else sick to death of gifts? Has anyone else stopped buying them?
Paine, Socrates et al at least spent their lives trying to enhance the one life that we demonstrably have.
Not precisely related, but this is the first intelligent criticism of Dawkin’s “Delusion” I have come across.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-07-04.html
I found it extremely educational. In order to stage his rebuttal, he has to provide a lot of absolutely fascinating background and a summary his field of research. By the time he’s finished, he hardly even has to explain his argument.
I was especially interested in his analysis of the function and advantages of asceticism. Provided with the model he presents, suddenly a lot of things make a lot more sense. I love that feeling!