I mean Hitchens approach is a full-frontal assault on their belief system and values. As such it is excessive (or undue) crticism.til661 wrote:That makes no sense.Criticisng them is OK .. but you should be accepting it is their right to worship who they like .. without undue criticism
Disingenuous. You've conflated a value judgement by the interviewer with a quote by Hitchens about the fallacy of escaping from consciousness.Mandy wrote:Clearly I do not agree with the above, but at least it shows the opposite view. Note the sentence
"attacks every belief system that rejects science or seeks to control its followers, whether or not it is theistic. "He therefore seems to be calling the majority of people, and societies throughout existence, even ones ruled SOLELY by the rule of law, as "grovelling, abandoned serfs." After all, laws are about controlling people.
I do note that on page 3 he argues that Fascism wasn't atheistic, which i agree with. So again that is fallacious.He would also thus condemn atheists, who group together in a party (which by implication has control over the people in the party).
Note on page 3 the reference to Fascism and communism being atheist, and he is against them.
Nobody here is defending his politics.If you join the army, you are in a chain of command where your "followers" (i.e. juniors) have to follow. Strange he is pro-war.
You can not run an army if juniors don't follow orders.
What Christopher Hitchens, taken to it's logical conclusion, will lead to chaos & anarchy, rule of the gun .. something like Iraq.
Resistance from religious groups? you are kidding right. For the last 2000+ years the establishment churches have taken the side of the wealthy, have exercised greed that would make Dick Cheney blush. And I'm supposed to be grateful for their morality.I can't help feeling that Hitchens agenda chimes with Bush's agenda of world domination by a super-power, unchecked capitalism, and might is right. That is much easier to happen when there is no third-party "reference" to morality (rich v. poor, don't covet they neighbour's Etc.) or resistance from religious groups."
He never said otherwise. The point he was making is that it may be 'human nature' but that it is a dangerous aspect of our makeup and should be rejected.Page 3 states :
"The religious impulse, if, shall we say, secularized a bit, is still dangerous: the impulse to worship, the impulse to take things on faith, the impulse to believe in miracles, the impulse to adore and to believe in incarnate good and evil. All these things have dire consequences."
I think it is only human to take things on faith if one desires.
Freedom is only freedom if you can criticize the values of your society.Mandy wrote:I mean Hitchens approach is a full-frontal assault on their belief system and values. As such it is excessive (or undue) crticism.til661 wrote:That makes no sense.Criticisng them is OK .. but you should be accepting it is their right to worship who they like .. without undue criticism
Hitchens is free to believe what he wants, but when he is out there promoting further divisions in society, then his work is counter-productive.
How can we take his views on morality seriously when his pro-war stance shows his true moral position.til661 wrote: Nobody here is defending his politics.
I may be sarcastic and supercilious but I try not to be a hypocritetil661 wrote:That said it comes down to the idea that you can legislate morality/opinion which i believe is clearly nonsensical and wrong. As a social libertarian I could never support the suppression of free-speech by law and as such I disagree with Galloway (if he suggested that, i'm not sure he did though) just as i disagreed with his support of the religious hatred bill.
To be fair the thread is probably considerably more offensive than the title.Mandy wrote:Thanks.
One issue which was bugging me about this thread is the title "God Is Not Great" [which comes from the book]. Whilst Hitchens is against all religion, the title seems to be a twisting on the muslim prayer "God is Great".
As such, I wonder if the title is especially offensive to Muslims.
The two aren't related as far as i know, i don't believe he sees it as a war against religion, but he believes in the concept of liberal interventionism. Now you can argue whether that is wrong (which it is) but it has no bearing on his understanding of religion.Mandy wrote:How can we take his views on morality seriously when his pro-war stance shows his true moral position.til661 wrote: Nobody here is defending his politics.
Or put another way, if his views against religion leads him to somehow support the pro-war party, then as far as I am concerned, he has either a hidden agenda, or his whole morality and his views are questionable.
If you are going to intervene (=invade) countries (=countries with oil or other resources you covet) with a theist leaning (=lots of Muslims), it helps to demonise their religion by saying all religions are bad, and you are promoting "liberal" freedom (at the end of cruise missiles and Uranium armaments). Whilst he is apparently against all religions, from the title of the book, and his pro-war stance, it appears he is targeting one religion (Islam).til661 wrote:The two aren't related as far as i know, i don't believe he sees it as a war against religion, but he believes in the concept of liberal interventionism. Now you can argue whether that is wrong (which it is) but it has no bearing on his understanding of religion.
That is neither here nor there. Is what he said about religion accurate or not? People twist the truth for bad ends, just as the eugenicists twisted Darwin's evolutionary theory for their idea of master-races and what-not. It doesn't make evolution any less a fact.Mandy wrote:If you are going to intervene (=invade) countries (=countries with oil or other resources) with a theist leaning (=lots of Muslims), it helps to demonise their religion, but saying all religions are bad, and you are promoting "liberal" freedom (at the end of cruise missiles and Uranium armaments),til661 wrote:The two aren't related as far as i know, i don't believe he sees it as a war against religion, but he believes in the concept of liberal interventionism. Now you can argue whether that is wrong (which it is) but it has no bearing on his understanding of religion.
til661 wrote: That is neither here nor there. Is what he said about religion accurate or not? People twist the truth for bad ends, just as the eugenicists twisted Darwin's evolutionary theory for their idea of master-races and what-not. It doesn't make evolution any less a fact.
Mandy wrote:til661 wrote: That is neither here nor there. Is what he said about religion accurate or not? People twist the truth for bad ends, just as the eugenicists twisted Darwin's evolutionary theory for their idea of master-races and what-not. It doesn't make evolution any less a fact.
It does matter. To say his viewpoint is correct must include an analysis of what his viewpoint leads to. We need to analyse the effects of his teaching, and who he might influence, and if that could lead to racial hatred and attacks on people.
I am going to go out on a limb and say Hitchens' viewpoints are "racist declarations that are an incitement to violence against a specific person or group. "
