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From Hitch
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From Hitch |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
This is an open letter. If you're a believer, don't read it.  Christopher Hitchens was scheduled to appear at the American Atheist convention, but had to cancel because of his illness. He sent this letter instead. 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 superstition. 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 |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Sorry Brad, I eavesdropped after all. First impression: We'd be hard pressed find something that sounds less like the final address of a cultic high preist to his flock. Maybe after this thread we'll discuss Peter Hitchens as well. Strife among brothers always makes an interesting story. Stephen |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Yeah, people break God's commandments all the time (all 613). Why would anybody listen to me? The brothers angle sounds like a good idea. I had hesitations before and after posting this because I wasn't sure what direction this thread would go. By the way, I think your assessment is accurate. I don't think atheism is a cult but this is a call to arms (metaphorically speaking). Given Hitch's history, it would be surprising if it weren't. Is it justified? Sometimes I think yes (usually after watching Fox News), sometimes no (Hitch mentions solidarity, that's there in some form regardless of religion or lack there of). Atheism is the fastest growing group in the United States. In the world, it is probably either the second or third largest group (it depends on how you count the Chinese). I don't think silence is an option anymore. Whether or not atheists can organize themselves for more than three days of fun is anybody's guess. Herding cats? |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
This is probably one of Hitch's best statements: Better edited Hitch at his best Hitchens at his best Curious if anybody has noticed that I'm building up to . . . you know. I hope it doesn't happen but . . . you know. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Brad, "best" in what sense? Vitriolic arrogant rhetoric that routinely abandons his literary intelligence? For example, he won't have Nazism called a secular regime, for the reason that Hitler made references to God in "Mein Kampf". And yet, it's obvious that Hitler's use of religion was solely propaganda, especially if he was to appeal to a German populace with a religious history. Hitler's "Aryan" historical revision of religion, where Jesus of Nazereth is said to be Nordic, and the Old Testament mostly denounced because it is Jewish, should not be used as an example of German religion, as much as of oppression of religion by a Totalitarian state. (Metaxas' Biography on Bonhoeffer, is a good book to get an overview on how the Third Reich approached the Church). Has a mind as agile and subtle as Hitchens, actually missed this, or is he on a dishonest tirade against anything religious? And yes Brad, as always, I am curious of what you're leading up to. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Wow, that's all you get out of that? Hitch is reacting to the charge that Hitler was an atheist and therefore the Holocaust happened. While I agree that the situation is much more nuanced than Hitch lays out, I do not think Hitler was an atheist. Whether he was a Christian is certainly open to debate, the fact that he never left the Catholic Church is not. Yes, he saw it as a tool. But the two points, opportunism and belief, are not mutually exclusive. This is not to say that some Catholics did heroic things. They did. Some Catholics did atrocious things as well. Stalin on the other hand was an atheist and his relationship with the Greek Orthodox Church was also, um, nuanced. Hitch's overall point is that Christianity, Catholic, Protestant, and Greek Orthodox, have always been at best opportunistic: choose your date and look. Conversely, never forget Orwell: that, at root, all forms of totalitarianism are theocratic. It's a marriage made in hell. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Brad: quote: No, of course not. But it was good place for me to start, since it's all essentially the same song, different verses. Remember Hitchen's motif is that "religion poisons everything" ... ev-er-y-thing. quote: A point that Hitchens does not concede for a moment. Or at least he will not concede that they have ever done good because of their Christianity. And this, I find to be evidence of an emotionally-driven campaign rather than anything close to reasonable critique. No one is saying we shouldn't critique religious failure (or at least many religious would never say such a thing). quote: Sorry Brad, but that's a point you just contradicted in the word 'heroism', however infrequently you think that may have occurred (or occurs). At their best, these religious movements have not been opportunistic. I mean come on, Hitchens is angry and embittered, and we all know its not the most accurate lens to see through, though we can sympathize and even join in at times with his disapproval. But the dirt he slings has simply not been ubiquitous. It may hit all the mitred, but doesn't always stick. quote: Yep, especially when the worshipped and worshipper is the same, with or without religious trappings. quote: Yep, you're getting it. Stephen |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Well, I don't think I contradicted myself but I did screw up the grammar. And yet isn't it simply obvious that some Catholics do good things and some Catholic do bad things? Can't we just keep the sentence frame and substitute some other group there? Do we really have to preface every remark we say with such banal phrasing (kind of like saying "in my opinion" after every sentence)? As much as I want to scream no we don't, I'm stuck with the idea that we do, we do have to clutter our comments with such detritus. I had to make sure that you stated just such a similar remark considering atheists. Why? Because I've had to counter the idea that atheists, by definition, are lacking a morality. In some areas, this seems to be an axiom: No God, no morality. I don't think Hitch sees the same need there that I do. And while I think he often misunderstands some more subtle theological arguments on morality (or rather he might say obfuscatory remarks on morality), I also think he gives us, the audience, a certain respect by not endlessly, mind-numbingly repeating the bloody obvious. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Why ev-er-y-thing? Hitch often uses chess as an example, but what about football? If you pray before a game and win, did you cheat? If you pray and lose, were you bested or were you tested by God? Yeah, it gets that trivial. Humility? How can preachers and priests makes statements about God's intentions when it comes to natural disasters? When scientists make hypotheses, they are tested and checked by other scientists. This does not seem to be the case with preachers and priests. What are the consequences when proselytizers of the absolute change their mind? Goodness? God's bar is impossibly high, is it not? How do we assess the less than perfect good by that standard? I can use Hitch here. Hitch has argued that Auden's 1930s poetry is better than the post-return-to-Christianity work. He's wrong. Auden's best poems are from the 1940s and 1950s. How do we reconcile these two positions? We don't have to. We can discuss it, debate it, do exhaustive analyses on the work and there is value, there is something to be gained by that, in and of itself. Isn't there a suspicion with Hitch's pronouncement, that he dislikes the later work precisely because they do deal with, are influenced by, Auden's eclectic return to Christianity? Knowledge? Religion sacrifices the joy of new knowledge, the achievement of understanding, with the comfort of already knowing, the complacency of "I've learned all I need to". Charity? Helping or advertising? Morality? Agent or automaton? ------------------ Now, Stephen, I know you won't accept all these points. Hitch wouldn't either. But that's the point. You don't have to, he doesn't have to, and I don't have to. I can change my mind. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Stephen, Don't worry about a time lag. I don't know how much longer I can keep this up anyway. Also, neither the morality thread nor the teleological thread are finished. I just don't have the time to get to them right now. Three more ideas: 1. I still want to get a cosmological thread going. 2. I also want a thread on the multi-verse. Believe it or not, there is some controversial evidence for the idea (in quantum computing). 3. An apologetics thread: I don't have much to add here but I'd love to hear other people's takes on, at least from my point of view, the more bizarre statements made these days. It never ends so don't worry about finishing. PS Here's the start of the H v H debate: Hitchen versus Hitchens |
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Local Rebel Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767Southern Abstentia |
Sorry Brad. I know you have an admiration for Hitch but, I still don't understand the impetus to proselytize agnosticism. The evidence more supports the positive role the religious mind has played in the development of human civilization than the negative. I can drill a hole in a two by four -- I can drill a hole in baby's head. It isn't the drill's fault what I do with it. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Brad: quote: Um, Brad, I have no idea where this came from or how it refers to any response of mine. Could you help me? quote: That may be so, but it's faulty in those areas. Christianity is not the same as moralism, though it should have a high moral standard. Besides, the Christian apologists I know of who have answered Hitchens (John Lennox, Alister McGrath, and Dinesh D'souza- come to mind) have never said such a thing. Believer or non-believer, we are all moral beings, because created so, and therefore sometimes capable of "common moral decency". But common moral decency is just that. quote: I would say that he give us, the audience, a certain disrespect by mind-numbingly (entertainingly of course, due to his sharp invective and wit) repeating the bloody preposterous, namely that religion is useless and always poison. I would of course be interested in knowing what you consider to be "bloody obvious" that is so oft repeated by proponents of the faith ... but not without reminding you that Hitchens is also quite repetitive, as his delivery is comprised of but a few ideas, "religion is poison" being chief. And I'm sure that because of our respective views, we're going to disagree on which sounds more like an ostinato and which sounds more like a scratched phonograph. quote: (sigh) yeah, it gets that trivial because it was framed that way. First off, from a Theological view, God is patient. And those whose highest prayer and chief desire is to simply "win the football game", may be tolerated in the same way that I tolerate my youngest son always wanting to be "first". I deal with that mindset, though I am not overly concerned that it occurs. And then there is real experience ... I have found (though not a highly athletic person myself) that many if not most prayers among athletic events I've heard, have had to do chiefly with other concerns altogether, such as safety of the team and of the opposing team, issues in the lives of players totally outside of the arena, being a good example on the field (as is asking for help not to resort to playing "dirty", and showing courtesy as well as competition), and many other things besides "let us win". Though I certainly wouldn't be so pseudo-sanctimonious (or pseudo-egalitarian in some cases) to say that's not allowed. Anyway, though its a tasteless provocation, it could otherwise be a good discussion. But have you not figured out that Hithcens is not looking for discussion? The potentiality for triviality (in any setting he so chooses) is focused on to the exclusion of all else, and assumed to be both common and intrinsic to the subject. No qualifiers are allowed. It is rhetorically settled beforehand ... Now if you want to raise the problems of evil, unexplained suffering, unanswered prayer, or even the allegations of divine favoritism or capriciousness, then you've raised some worthy questions ... but they are not, and have never been, trivial. Nor are they trivial just because the same questions could be asked about a football game or even chess. Just like the question of materialistic determinism is not a trivial one just because it could be applied to football or chess. quote: Good question. And another one is, considering the wickedness of sin in humanity, how can it be that we've already decided that God could never express himself through nature, whether in wrath, mercy, or by sending trials that end up making us ultimately stronger (even in the same event)? Though not difficulty free, are any of these ideas reasonable? You may think I've dodged your question about the accountability of preachers. I haven't exactly done so. Or, more accurately, I haven't done it to merely dodge the question. I've asked you questions to show that there are good questions to be asked from all sides. But I don't sense that recognition (at all) in anything by Christopher H. quote: If you believe this to be invariably true, then may I recommend "The Devil's Delusion" by the agnostic mathmetician Berlinski? And no, this doesn't mean that I'm against science. But still for me, the myth of the objective and disinterested unity of science is no longer thinkable. But religious statements, like scientific statements, are tested on many levels, though the interpretive sieves and social filters may be different. "Heresy" by Alister McGrath is a good book that touches on this subject. quote: I haven't read much of Auden. Though I am interested since I have read about him through the author Alan Jacobs, and since he was part of the "Inklings". But since I haven't read him, I can't really comment on the question. quote: It does ... or it can? quote: Great question, one that I would best like to ask of my own actions. Jesus certainly spoke of this slippery distinction in the human heart. quote: Okay. But why is this interesting or other than obvious? Maybe I'm just missing something Brad. You're probably a better writer than I. I feel I am more direct (though maybe frustratingly simplistic). With you I have to read between the lines, and follow your dance. And Brad, all your ideas about new threads sound great. Just take it easy, and introduce one at a time. I think, for the sake of the discussion, it would be best. I certainly couldn't respond meaningfully to more than one or two at a time. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
If I understand correctly, the core of the discussion is that Hitchens says about God, “There isn’t one,” and Brad more or less agrees with Hitchens. Hitchens also says that the whole idea’s a bad one and causes shingles, gout and bad breath, not to mention bad feeling amongst people. Stephanos, breaking president, says, “No, really, there is one. He can express his moods through weather, only we haven’t yet stumbled upon the key to deciphering exactly what the code is, so you can’t tell for sure which theologians are calling the game accurately.” I am very sorry Mr, Hitchens is ill. He is a sharp cookie, for the most part, except for those times when he thinks that Bob Dylan is a poet and not a very fine song-writer. I disagree with him here. I tend to like most of Auden, except the later Auden on the whole. I notice neither Mr. Auden nor Mr. Dylan made much of a habit of trying to force a point of view down anybody’s throat, however, unlike many of the authorities so far cited, including Mr. Hitchens himself, who comes across as a bit of a bully, albeit a very bright and articulate bully. Certainly decent things have come from religion, including the preservation of most of the ancient manuscripts that have managed to survive through the efforts of various monks and occasional pieces of literature written by religious folk as well. Don’t be silly. Certainly rotten things have come from religion as well, such as the persecution of the Jews and interfaith wars. Again, don’t be silly. Decent things have come from atheism as well, including the plays of Marlowe and a lot of scientific research. Allowing one’s self to get trapped into making patently false statements such as these furthers nobody’s cause. Yes, Hitler was born Catholic and as far as I know, died a Catholic as well. Other than being excommunicated, there seem to be very few ways of getting one self Un-Catholicked as far as I know. It was to the advantage of the Church to keep him officially in the fold in the hopes of influencing the man in some fashion during his lifetime. I hope they weren’t foolish enough to consider excommunicating him when there was the possibility of influencing him in some small fashion to do some measure of good or at least some measure less evil during his life. Grand gestures are satisfying to contemplate, but may not be to the good of the greatest number in the long run. I should also point out that it didn’t hurt Hitler any either. I would seriously doubt, however, that he was a religious Catholic, and anybody with any familiarity with that faith would probably have serious doubts about that as well. Mr. Hitchens would have to be disingenuous to toss an accusation like that, though there were certainly pro-nazis in the church, just as there were and are folks with pro-communist sentiments in the church with serious dedication to land reform and other important issues. Most of these folks are Catholics first and foremost, and to think their loyalties would lie elsewhere would probably be a mistake. Yeah, there could be exceptions, but not enough to matter. At some point, it’s easy to lose sight of the basic decency that it’s possible to have in treating each other. It’s not there all the time with everybody in all situations, of course. But what areas do you guys see as areas where you differ, and where do you see yourselves having areas in common? |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Agnosticism: quote: --Thomas Huxley, 1889 Maybe I'm wrong but this seems like a good thing to proselytize. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Stephen, All those points revolve around theism as a form or totalitarianism and totalitarianism as form of theism. Sorry for being so vague. Bob, Pretty good summary. I suspect that Stephen and I have but one disagreement: what I just said to Stephen. Later Auden: I'm thinking of Nones. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Brad, By Huxley's definition (though vague in the way it effortlessly intersects rationalism and empiricism, and sidesteps the personal/existential) an "agnostic" can be a Theist. It almost sounds like agnosticism in this sense is indistinguishable from something like critical thinking or incredulity. But I daresay that this "method" is not unique to atheists at all, though we've come to different conclusions. Anyway, my own reasoning and empirical observation makes me believe that Hitchen's proselytizing is about more than promoting a epistemic method. Stephen |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Christopher Hitchens vs. John Lennox- Is God Great? Here's a debating opponent who is at least up to par with Hitchens' acumen and accent. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Stephen, Sure, it's simple. Did you think there was some mystery to this stuff?  But you're right. Hitch doesn't stop there. His four pillars: 1. the agnostic position (We cannot prove that there are no gods) 2. the secular life is both more fulfilling for the individual and for society (Humanism) 3. religion is archaic (analogies: alchemy to chemistry; astrology to astronomy) 4. religion is immoral (antitheism) If you want a concession from me, I find it difficult to endorse pillar 4. It's not that what he says is wrong or even inflated, it's, and I'm going out on a limb here, that we can make a distinction between belief in the supernatural and bibliolatry (broadly defined). Of course, that determination can only ever be made by us. Historically, We should never forget the French Revolution and the Thirty-Years War. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Brad, Yeah, we all know these issues are as lucid as water. This came to mind: quote: This position is uninteresting, strictly technical, and goes for all. We can't strictly prove there isn't or that there is a God. This says nothing of whether there is, or of reasonable evidence, or of the inexorable involvement of the human will when it comes belief and commitment. quote: Again, none can prove this valuation. Arguments can be made either way. Of course, I find it interesting that believers will invariably say that humanistic culture has value because fallen human beings are created in the image of God, and that non-believers will invariably say that religion has value because it is ever a human(istic) construct. In other words, in a humanistic framework, religion is always secular, and in a religious framework, secularism is never rid of religion (both in its own commitments beyond reason, and in its conformation with theological ideals) quote: Something religion concedes too (excepting that the analogies fail at many points), though archaism should not be confused with mere age, nor considered intrinsic to the foundations of all religious beliefs. quote: Pretty much the same answer as for 3. Possible, but not necessary. quote: I of course agree. But Hitchens would never concede that the bloodshed of the French Revolution had anything to do with rationalism or secularism, in the same way that Christians would never say that Jihadism has anything to do with "pure and undefiled religion", though they would certainly admit that religious ideas are not inherently virtuous, and are often connected with vice. Secularists think that human good is possible, and from a Christian understanding have a misguided Pelagian view of things. Christians think that human good without God is impossible, and that what good we see here and now is gratuitous and points to a higher good, and from a secular point of view are delusional. I'm rambling. But I guess that given the presuppositions of either view, it's no wonder that things must be interpreted in this fashion. Stephen |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
quote: I disagree. The agnostic position should be put into practice much more often than it actually is. I agree that anybody can use it, so let's use it more. quote: I like this so much I wish I had said it. What this means is that we can argue on Monday and work together on Tuesday, that you're not going to the guillotine on Wednesday and I'm not going to be burned at the stake on Thursday. Let's try to keep this in mind for the weekend. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
And now I've thought about it and realized that I could never say that. Stephen, Do you think this is the more or less standard way that theistic people see things? Is the idea that atheists are moral monsters a caricature of an opinion and not the reality? Are atheists really the least trusted minority? I find it difficult to believe that one in five Americans doesn't know the earth revolves around the sun but that's what polls say. Do you think that's accurate? [This message has been edited by Brad (05-05-2011 01:11 AM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Interesting turn of discussion. Interesting four pillars; do I have them right? 1. the agnostic position (We cannot prove that there are no gods) 2. the secular life is both more fulfilling for the individual and for society (Humanism) 3. religion is archaic (analogies: alchemy to chemistry; astrology to astronomy) 4. religion is immoral (antitheism) 1. I don’t understand the double negative. English can be very subtle, and few times more confusing than when dealing with multiple negatives. Is this Hitchen’s locution, or somebody else’s? As a — mostly — agnostic, I’d say that the position is a statement of uncertainty in the face of incomplete and unconvincing evidence in either direction and a statement of lack of knowledge. Gnosis meaning knowledge, Ag meaning a pain in the butt.; ergo, the whole question is a pain in the butt and can’t be concluded on grounds other than faith. I may have taken some minor liberties. If we can’t prove the absence of a God or Gods, we can’t prove their presence either in a way that is as kinetically convincing as, say, a punch in the nose, a standard that is short of martyrdom but difficult to sidestep on a regular basis. Agnostic is not Atheistic, as both Stephen and Brad seem to understand, but which others sometimes do not. 2. I’m quite fond of Humanism, myself. I would remind folks that the term came into cultural awareness as a result of the work of Erasmus, potentially at least the first Humanist; and, more than incidentally, a monk. I am uncertain as to whether such a thing as a Secular Humanist is a distinction without a difference or not, but I believe it may well be. The assertion that a secular life is more satisfying for the individual and the society leaves open the question, More satisfying than what? At what point has there been a clear distinction drawn for other than clergy between the secular and the religious life? I have known quite religious people who live quite satisfying daily lives with all the dimensions that non-religious people seem to have, plus a dimension of faith that seems to add something quite special to the way they go about leading their lives as well. I have also known rigid and difficult people with whom religion serves to block a lot of important elements that they would quite possibly be happier for experiencing, in my opinion. That seems to be a function of the rigidity and difficulty with which they experience the world, however, as much as it does their religion, since I’ve known Atheists and Agnostics to display the same characteristics. The characteristics seems to adhere to the person and not to the religiosity of the person. That’s my observation, at least. Obsessional behavior is obsessional behavior regardless of what the content of the obsession may be. There are Clergy or Religious who can be unfulfilled and clergy and Religious who can be very fulfilled indeed. I’ve had the same experience with Dentists and Lawyers and Psychiatrists. My understanding is that the dentists and psychiatrists, at least, have a higher suicide rate. One doesn’t make the same statements about Dentists and Psychiatrists, whose alienation seems to be at least as severe, if not more so at times. It seems Mr. Hitchens may be venturing onto difficult ground here. 3. Is religion archaic? I’m fond of a lot of archaic things myself, such as classical greek sculpture and poetry and mythology. It seems that somebody is trying to use “archaic” as a synonym for “obsolete,” which it assuredly is not. Certainly not in a discussion of Alchemy, which is not as well understood as our contemporary scientists assume it to be. Simply because a scientist is a fine chemist does not mean he or she understands Alchemy. The attitude of contempt should, given the basics of the scientific method, be understood as ignorance pretending to knowledge. The basic information about Alchemy was knowledge that was designed to be hidden from fools, and statements made about the subject should take that into consideration. This doesn’t mean Alchemy is the answer to the world’s problems, or is even anything but hogwash. It simply means that we are making statements as though we had knowledge that we plainly don’t have. That is also the case, sad to say, about our discussion about religion. My own foolishness is at least as monumental as anybody else’s in this matter. 4. Religion is immoral. You can make that statement about pretty much anything you are willing to take an absolute and unwavering stand against. I must admit that making the statement about Religion has a bit more going for it in terms of style points than, say, bad breath or world peace. I think bad breath is more venal than evil, and I happen to be basically in favor of world peace, you see, while believing that Religion itself is evil merely leaves you with the tricky position of having to prove it to people who may be wavering one way or the other. The people who are basically indifferent to the subject are a tough audience to sway. I have a lot more against people who are rigid and obsessional on hobbyhorse subjects, myself. Like those folks who call people who think Shakespeare wrote his own plays “Stratfordians.” I am a Stratfordian. As long as nobody beats me over the head with religion, I think it does some people a lot of good. And this whole loving one another business seems like a pretty good idea to me. After all, it is a Wednesday. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
One definition of archaic: quote: I can't remember if Hitch used that word himself (which doesn't mean anything, I'm constantly rediscovering where I get my own ideas from). The essence I was shooting for there was Hitch's claim that religion was our first stab at explaining the universe. I should have been clearer though. _________________________ On the double negative: For some people, it all seems to depend on the phrasing. To say "I am an atheist" means different things: I don't believe in God (or gods). I don't believe in a particular god. I lack belief in a God or gods. I lack belief in a particular god. I believe that there is no God (or gods). Often enough these debates degenerate into arguing who has the burden of proof. Personally, I think it should just describe the way you live your life. But that's a minority position. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: Alas, it's one of those things that poets, philosophers and scientists all seem to have in common. Normally, you'd expect such folk to quarrel about things like clarity and precision of expression. Turns out that all of them are quite concerned about being exact expression, mostly. I was told that they were playing around at Iowa in the late seventies with taking a good poem and seeing what the smallest thing was that they might do to it to ruin it. I wish I could have seen some of the examples. In this case, I wasn't trying to nit-pick, I simply couldn't understand what lay behind the double negative. I didn't understand; I wasn't being coy, though heaven knows I'm not above being coy from time to time. As for the tug of war on the question of the existence of God and the burden of proving their case, why should it matter? You can decide who has the burden any way you want. Perhaps both parties should have the burden of proof. I have trouble imagining a proof from either side convincing somebody who is convinced the other side is right at the beginning of the discussion. It certainly happens when a pistol is held to your head, of course, but the change is not one that is seriously trusted by anybody afterwards. And often even the pistol is not enough. Belief will frequently trump logic in my experience. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
If the world ends on May 21st? That would be a pretty good proof. I also think that we'll have a pretty good proof on May 22nd for the other position, but most people won't see it like this: That that particular God doesn't exist. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Proof of what? |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
That God exists. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Brad, Bob, I have had no time to put into this lately. But perhaps soon I can get back to it. Stephen |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Hey, I don't have time. But I figured it's either now, or a long time from now, so here goes ... Brad: quote: Yep, that’s quite a good thing. A solid point of agreement in practice we’ll always share. quote: I’m not sure. I know that when I encounter this attitude in professing Christians, I do my best to challenge it. I also know that it is human nature to identify the “other”, and to proceed to villify and make “them” a focus of opposition. Obviously this is no less true of Hitchens. I also know that there are many Christians who do not see agnostics and atheists in this light, notwithstanding passionate disagreement. Can Christian “truth” be a scaffolding upon which to hang a bad approach, a bad attitude about other people? Yes. But I think its only achieved by consciously evading very specific warnings by Jesus not to do so. I also try to remind those who fit your description, that many atheists and agnostics are so, at least in part, because of a disillusionment with practical religion ... in other words, church people are partly to blame for skepticism and unbelief. Paul expressed this thought in Romans 2:24 when he wrote to Jewish Christians that “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you”. The doctrine of salvation by Grace, is another means of challenging this tendency. If it really is about unmerited favor toward sinners, then there is no basis for rancor toward those who are not believers. This may sound condescending or patronizing to some, since Christians still believe that agnostics and atheists are wrong, and (like themselves) rebellious to God. But it’s no more patronizing than atheists accepting "nice" or "intelligent" Christians, even though they are self deluded believers in the supernatural. I guess that much is unavoidable for now. Civility, though, isn’t. quote: Maybe, maybe not. It seems that rudimentary science was somewhat concurrent with religious thought, in regard to explaining things. The Eleatic philosophers seemed to be making quasi-scientific claims about reality quite early on. But neither science nor religion should be called archaic (as a category) simply because it has existed a long time. If there can be bad science, then there can be bad religion. If there can be superseded science, then there can be superceded religion (even, I would argue, with the kind that really was given by God, and not just conjured from imagination). It just seems like the charge of all religion being archaic, is a rash one, that makes complex phenomena far to simplistic. quote: What particular God? There’s always the possibility that they’ve misrepresented a particular God. For example, religions that claim to revere the New Testament as authoritative have to explain how the knowledge of the exact time of the end-of-the-world, is compatible with historical statements by Jesus the Christ, to the contrary (Matthew 24:36). It would be rash for you to deduce I don’t have a girlfriend named Laurie, just because you found out something I said about her isn’t true. It would be even more rash for you to conclude there wasn't such a person, even if your conclusion that she isn't my girlfriend, is warranted. Stephen |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
quote: These are the people I can work with. From my own point of view, I very much like the idea that two people with radically different ideas can come together over a common cause. Atheists are also accused of condescension and arrogance; they also accuse theists of the same thing. I suspect we just have to learn to live with this. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
By the way, Laurie is my girlfriend. She's also my wife. |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Hitch, RIP. |
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Essorant Member Elite
since 2002-08-10
Posts 4769Regina, Saskatchewan; Canada |
Peace be upon him, especially now that he has found God. |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Rest in Peace. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. Anyone consider Hitch's mother and the manner of her death on his belefs? It reminds me of Job’s wife: “Curse God and die” Someone else remarked that Hitch was an ironic atheist in that he spent a great deal of time arguing against a god he didn’t believe in. And much of his anger had to do with the practices of men in the worship of god as if they were god directed. Face it, at times he could be pretty adolescent. "There are things in life that we must endure which are all but unendurable, and yet I feel there is a great goodness. Why, when there could have been nothing, is there something? This is a great mystery. How, when there could have been nothing, does it happen that there is love, kindness, beauty?" Jane Kenyon ................ God’s Sadness (God Speaks) I see you coming and going upon the trembling of the Earth as in the world’s first days, but great is the difference, my work is no longer within me. I have given it entirely to you. Men, my beloved, I am powerless in your misfortunes, I could give you only tears and your courage, which are the warm evidence of God’s existence. The moisture in your soul is what you have left of me. I could do no more. I could do nothing for the mother whose son is going to die except give light to you, candles of hope. If it were not so, would you know, you undefended little beds, the paralysis of children. I am cut off from my work, what is finished is far away and goes further still each day. When the brook runs down from the mountain can there be any going back? I can no more speak to you than a potter can speak to his pot, of the two one is deaf, the other dumb before his handiwork and I see you advancing towards blinding precipices and cannot even identify them for you, and I cannot hint to you how you should set about them, you must get yourself out of trouble alone like orphans in the snow. And I tell myself each day beyond a vast silence: ‘There’s another doing wrong what he could do right, another stumbling by not looking where he should, and here’s another leaning much too far over his balcony, forgetting gravity, and that one who hasn’t checked his engine, farewell aeroplane, farewell man!’ I can do no more for you, alas if I repeat myself it is through enduring it. I am a memory descending, you are living in a memory, the hope that climbs your hillsides, you are living in expectation. Shaken by the prayers and the blasphemies of men, I am everywhere at once and cannot show myself, without moving I move about and pass from heaven to heaven, I am the wanderer within myself and the inwardly teeming hermit, familiar with distances, I am very distant from myself, I stray deep within myself like a child in the woods, I call myself, I haul myself in and draw myself towards my centre. Man, if I created you it was to see it more clearly and to live in a body, I who have neither hands nor face. I want to thank you for doing earnestly all that will have only a brief time on the beloved earth. O my child, my precious one, O courage given by your God, my son, you have gone roaming the world in my place ahead of me in your so vulnerable body with its great poverty. Not a small parcel of skin where deep decay may not form. Each of you knows how to be a dead man without the need to learn, a perfect corpse that can be rolled and rolled again in all directions, in which no fault can be found. God outlives you, he alone survives in the midst of great massacre of men, women, and children, even alive you are constantly dying a little, make your peace with life, with your trembling loves. You have a brain, fingers to fashion the world to your taste, you have talents to give life to reason and madness within your shell, you have all the animals that form Creation, you can run and swim like the dog and the fish, move forward like the tiger or the week-old lamb, you can bring death to yourself like the reindeer, the scorpion, yet I remain the invisible one, undiscoverable on the Earth, have pity on your God who could not make you happy, small fragments of myself, O throbbing sparks, I offer you only a furnace where you will find fire once again. Jules Supervielle . . [This message has been edited by Huan Yi (02-22-2012 11:57 PM).] |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
quote: You need to be specific about what you mean here, John. I know that she committed suicide. I hear that she committed suicide while living in Greece with her new companion, perhaps a husband in the late ‘80’s. Hitchens had a history of interest in left-wing causes before his mother’s death and no particular history of fondness for religion. While many people find it difficult to believe that atheism is an actual philosophical and perhaps religious choice on the same footing as Catholicism, Taoism or Buddhism, others will note that there is nothing that makes it more or less correct in a philosophical sense. Catholicism insists on a variation of the monotheism. Some variations of Taoism skip the necessity of Gods entirely, as does the Buddhist position generally. Hitchens seems to have a serious animus for those religions that that seemed to him most aggressive about their own righteousness. They and Hitchens supplied each other a sort of mirror of each other’s most pyrotechnical unpleasantnesses. It often seemed entertaining to me to watch them match each other drink for drink — as it were — from what appeared to my eyes to be the same bottle of rotgut bourbon. I found your sly insinuation that Hitchen’s mother’s suicide and Hitchen’s belief in atheism might have some causal connection entertaining. I looked and looked, and couldn’t find it actually stated in print, and yet the implication is very clear, as though an intelligent man couldn’t actually present cogent arguments for the atheistic position unless he was suffering from some deep psychological illness. Please feel free to correct me here if I have misunderstood what you were communicating. To me this seemed clear as day, and I couldn’t understand why you actually didn’didn’t say it in so many words, other than the fact that it’s not an easily supportable position. There’s nothing less philosophically valid about atheism than there is about the other major religious positions, and, to be fair, nothing more valid about it either. A person can be sick and unhealthy in their advocacy of almost anything, including proper posture and regular dental care. There is in fact a book on how proper posture was subverted to extraordinary ill effect in what is probably the most famous single case of paranoia ever written up (called “The Schreiber Case,” for what it’s worth, it was written up by Freud. A recent addition to the Freud write-up was published — titled Soul Murder, it deals with some of the aspects of that case, specifically the use of machines to produce extreme varieties of postural effects, that Freud overlooked. It’s well written and accessable to lay readers.) Simply because Hitchens advocated atheism doesn’t mean he was wrong in the head. It’s simply another variety of religious experience where the emphasis is foolishly placed on the rational elements of thought and behavior. The rational is just as untrustworthy, by the way in my humble opinion, as the theological. I mean, really; what kind of trust are you going to place in the kind of thinking that says that you should use radiation treatment to shrink adenoids and give generations of children freedom from stuffed up noses? And expose them all to the risk of thyroid cancer. Hmmm? Whether the Philosophy of Atheism is correct or not, I don’t know; nor do I have any way of knowing. But in terms of the argument it makes, it seems just as valid as the arguments made by most of the other religions; and, for the most part, I make an effort to avoid calling them sick, which is more than many of them do about each other. Hitchens does seem to have a weakness for wanting to triumph in intellectual discussions. I believe that’s a serious flaw, but it’s also one he seems to have had the intellect to be able to indulge; and in one example in which he debated some Muslim students — an example which I believe you posted — he was able to do so with restraint and kindness that allowed the students in question their dignity and self respect. I wish I were skilled enough to be able to do that, and compassionate enough to keep that foremost in my mind. I was very admiring. The quotation from Job is also one that seems ambiguous to me. Esophageal cancer is not a good way to go. I have no understanding what connection you seem to be trying to draw here between Hitchen’s suffering and his death. He certainly never cursed God. You would have to be a believer to do that, wouldn’t you? And nobody ever accused Hitchens of being a believer in God. Lot’s wife was urging Lot, as I understand the passage, to curse God to provoke a backlash from God: God, in His fury, might then strike Job dead and relieve Job’s suffering. That is the way that I’ve always read that most incredibly beautiful and moving passage, as a cry from the heart for relief from unbearable suffering. Otherwise what would be the point, right? You might imagine that God would punish you for denying Him, but it’s a fairly primitive psychology that sees death as that punishment, isn’t it, John? God arranges things so that everybody dies whether you Curse Him or not, and suggesting that He’ll kill you more quickly for one than for the other puts the psychology of the person who’s doing the thinking at under the age of about 10, when the preoccupation is all about fairness. If there is a God, people under 10 will understand Him that way, but that doesn’t mean that God’s obligated to follow their rules, any more that you’re supposed to follow the rules of the ant colony at the end of the driveway. Maybe today you will, of course; then again, maybe you’ve got the hose in your hand and you’re on your way back from washing the car and you don’t like what the ants are going to the azaleas. Why not let Hitch rest in Peace, Hmmm? I mean, Really, Hmmm? |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
I honestly had hoped this thread was resting in peace, for sure, since we've talked about Hitchens quite a bit. But I do want to make a couple of comments since it has been raised from dead, so to speak. John, the poem you quoted seems to be a description of Hell. I can make no other theological or even psychological sense of it than that. Bob: quote: Yes, but if you're well aquainted with his position, it was that "Religion poisons everything", period. He makes no distinction between good and bad religion, which was a major point of contention with his critics. He allowed the distinction with every other tradition or enterprise, but was adamant not to concede it for religious thought or practice. This is not just my opinion, it was actually one of his most signaturely prominent themes. quote: Not at all. To closely paraphrase Hitchens, "If he existed then he would be a cosmic dictator, and his rule a Celestial North Korea." The doctrine of self-sacrifice especially as exhibited in the life of Jesus, he called immoral and wicked, with no mincing of words. Dinesh D'Souza, one of his more lively debaters from the position of Christian Theism, noted in his very presence that Hitchens is more of an anti-Theist than atheist, a point that Christopher seemed to agree with and made no effort to deny. I say none of this with rancor. I'm just calling it as I see it. Even for a human being, to refer to them alternately as bully, wicked, and of no consequence whatsoever, amounts to a curse, at least in my simple understanding. I'd not say it of even those I like least. My prayer is that there was something in Hitchens that didn't quite believe this, that longed for the God whom he cursed. I certainly opt for the "Rest In Peace" sentiment that has been nobly expressed in this thread. quote: That's an interesting interpretation. But there is another. Having lost her own integrity, by cursing God in despair, she urged her suffering husband to do the same. Job actually calls her a "foolish woman" in the narrative, and asserts the propriety of devotion to God even in the presence of unexplained and harrowing pain, putting forth a practical Theodicy. The entire book of Job is a polemic to contrast those who talk of the "problem of evil" on one hand, or the religious who don't admit any ambiguity in God's dealings with humanity, on the other. In such a context, it's hard to imagine Job's wife's words as an expression of compassion. Rather, I think, it's more reasonable to see her as an embodiment of one of the ways of thinking which the book of Job was written to dispute. Stephen |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
quote: http://youtu.be/E9TMwfkDwIY |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
It may be possible, Stephen, that Hitchens longed for God at the end. I think that he arranged to have constant and daily access to God all the time, and in fact to be bathed in God all the time, and be possessed by Him and to be completely taken Up by God through all his final years. Some of us a good children and some of us a naughty children, and it may be one of the more annoying traits of Good children to believe that bad children must be punished with particular severity. That may even be true, but they shouldn't bank on it. Mostly, Good kids tend to be very strict and straitjacketed folk. Many of them insist on being rewarded for their goodness and are very resentful of people who get things from mom and dad simply because they are loved, and believe not so secretly that they have a better idea how their misbehaving brethren ought to be treated. One of the things I see over an over in looking at the bible — which you must know better than I do — is the fury and puzzlement that people show when they look at the works and sometimes the Word of God. He doesn't translate well into language. One must be fluent in compassion, a language which I don't think anybody human has entirely mastered. As to whether Hitchens was wrong or not about religion, I couldn't say. Personally, I would categorize him as an extremely religious guy. He was quite concerned with how people treated each other. He wanted people to love each other and to behave ethically. He simply didn't think the notion of God was essential to the process. My personal take on the matter is that a belief in God is essential for most people to pull off any but the most limited semblance of care for others. Without it, they'd actually behave more callously than most voters in a Democracy funding a human services health care measure for treatment of the retarded, the mentally ill, the poor, the orphaned, the widowed, the jobless, or — as they are called in Republican circles — the deadbeats. Hitchens didn't think God was a necessary concept. I do. But then, Hitchens was an Atheist, and I'm an Agnostic. Hitchens was certain there was no God. I think the concept is needed to make people behave, but have no idea at all whether there's anybody home inside that vital concept. That's why I think Hitchens was secretly one of Youse Guys, the believers. He thought he had an answer where no answer is possible without the intervention of faith. I'm all for faith, by the way. It keeps more of Youse Guys scared Straight, which is almost enough to get you to Act Right. Not, sadly enough, enough actually to really act right and make sure that people don't starve to death and that you don't poison each other (and me, too, by the way) to make money, and kill each other in the name or religions that you don't really believe in anyway — or at least won't actually act as though you believe in. You won't actually Act Right, but you will try to get everybody else to act the way you won't act yourselves. Folks who bear the burden of having The Right Religion, and who thus bear the burden of making sure that other people have to follow it, are a burden the rest of us have to bear; and Mr. Hitchens stood up for us against them, and he did so pretty well. I for one will miss him. I'm reasonably certain that somewhere there's a movement afoot to have him baptized as a LDS. They can do that, baptize the dead. The living tend to think of it as a favor they can do those who died before they could reap the benefits of the new revelation. I suspect that the dead would think of it as another way in which they will have had their humanity stripped from them, were they able to think at all. I think that imagining Hitchens coming to a reconciliation with God is a way of imagining winning an argument with the man that it's unlikely you could have won when he was alive, and of insisting that your position and your familiarity with it would be enough to change his mind. Whether Hitchens was right or not, he had a position at least as well thought out as anybody else's, and imagining his position was not a religious position simply suggests that you underestimate how deeply he believed in it and how central it was to him. He may have spoken about it in rational terms, and the terms were rational indeed, but he certainly believed he was correct as firmly as anybody else believed in the rightness of their theology. At least that's my observation. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. "John, the poem you quoted seems to be a description of Hell. I can make no other theological or even psychological sense of it than that." That's because for you God must be omnipotent, and thereby ultimately responsible. That was the God Hitch could not believe in because by his examples, ( which could have included a defrocked priest destroying his parents’ marriage and then killing his mother through suicide), God then would be a cruel vicious deity requiring cruelty from his worshipers . But if you accept God as being limited in his power as the poem suggests you can then have a good God that makes sense. In Job, God’s response is basically: who are you to question ME? The old testament God was a god to be feared, as in Islam God is a god to be submitted to . In both cases any affection has its basis in a need to placate. With Christ comes a God to be loved in response to love. And therein is a great difference . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
The fear of God may be the beginning of wisdom, I don't know, John. But I suspect that it isn't the end of it, even in the five books. The church was horrified and appalled to find out that there were sources of Jewish wisdom that had post-dated the death of Jesus, and ordered them burned. It was the beginning of one of the first great persecutions directed not at the conversion of the Jews but at their extermination. Love of God must, I believe, require a love of justice. If you love God and if you love Justice, I believe you need not fear God, though you'd have to be a fool not to fear your fellow man. My understanding is that the Books of Job is also one of the earliest if not the earliest book in the bible, and may well predate the Jews. The questions raised are certainly universal ones, and suggesting that they are unique to Jews and Christians sounds to me like the Russians being quick to claim credit for everything during the cold war, from the invention of flight to anything else they could think of. Of course it may have been written by Jews or by God. I wasn't there, and I couldn't tell you for sure. The narritive frame for the book of Job, however, was that Shaitan approaches God with a proposition, that God tests Job's faith. Shaitan is shown in a different aspect than the one portrayed in current Christian theology, and I don't believe that you've taken this into consideration in your proposal, John. He is an interlocotur, not an adversary. God already knows the answer, that Job is a righteous man who does not need testing. Any other answer suggests that God is other than The One God, All knowing and All Powerful. The Book of Job is an exploration of The Problem of Evil. I, for one, find it a failure as such, and believe that all the attempts to portray it as successful are the failures of brilliant men attempting to find a way to make an accurate description of a spiteful and humanly un-understandable God soothing and bearable when these ways are basically beyond human comprehension and painful beyond toleration. That's my opinion. Christians tend to try to say that God's behavior is merciful and compassionate. I like their stubbornness. I tend to believe that there really is evil out there. I don't believe that it's God's responsibility, any more than Good is, but if you're lucky a belief in God can help you find a model for living a good life and for avoiding an evil life. So I'm splitting hairs. |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob: quote: I fully appreciate the sentiment, but there's a lot of hyperbole in your statements. An atheist who berated God as Hitchens did, certainly in no way "arranged" anything. About the togetherness-plan, all the arrangement, would have been God's. That's of course true of all who finally get with God, even the "good" ones you speak of. If the "good" ones have no inkling how bad they are, not believing that Adam's original-sin is also their individual-sin, then they more resemble the prodigal's older brother. And we all know how unsympathetic and self-righteous he and his progeny can be. But the parable doesn't leave out the necessity of the prodigal "coming to himself" either, and the necessity of confessing his state, before fellowship with the Father is possible. Therefore to presume that all those who blaspheme God and declare unbelief are going to be just fine, is a misrepresentation of the Grace of God. To use your own words ... "That may even be true, but they shouldn't bank on it." Does this mean that the older-brother-types need no correction? They certainly do! And in the parable he certainly comes across with less grace and virtue than his wayward little brother who came back with an enlarged heart. Still, it would have been entirely correct for the elder sibling to have remained at home in orthodoxy, without taking it all for granted and imagining he was so deserving. He could affirm the dangers of wandering, without resenting those who do, and without wishing their possible ill-fate upon them. In other words, the best stance takes the best of both sons, and recognizes their worst, rather than straining to eulogize everything. quote: You really do have a good understanding of what God's Grace is like, and state it quite well. And if this sounds patronizing, it isn't. quote: Yeah, it's what we've been saying all along ... that unbelief is a commitment just like religious-faith is a commitment. It's not obvious that there's no God, to say the least, but one must decide something. The only difference between you and I, is that I don't exclude you from the congregation of those who exercise a kind of "faith". The agnostic position also makes a commitment to the belief that God cannot be known. Many who feel this way even believe that such an epistemology is universal, and that all believers are really deluded agnostics themselves. I don't know where you stand really on such questions. But I don't want you to think any stance is exempt from the ingredient of personal commitment. quote: You sound like a regular Old Testament prophet, which not altogether a bad thing. The spirit of a reformer. But regarding your above statement, does it include you, me, we, all? Exceptions, none, some, sometimes, ever? All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, me certainly included, and even those who don't believe in Original sin. But is there never any consistency among those who preach moral reformation? Would you want there to be? Would you overlook it in your polemic? quote: But you just admitted that Hitch had a religion too. And I reminded you that you don’t lack one yourself. He certainly crusaded in its name. And even a respectable and ethically-charged-agnosticism has a liturgy, that you express and urge quite well quite often, obviously thinking it's right too. Saying “It’s only my opinion” doesn’t ever change that. I guess some burdens we all share. quote: That's interesting Bob, accusing believers of thinking that the dead can be raised!... Um, wait a minute ... Haha. Seriously though, I know its tempting for you to make every statement of someone you don't agree with out to be a psychological projection of themselves, and as coming from an egoist motive. But in my best moments, I'm really aware that Hitch's argument was not with me at all but with God. I'm not throwing stones, I've tended to argue with God myself, and still do. And yet, there is the possibility that some believers, some of the time, really want Hitch to "rest in peace", for his own sake. Because there is the possibility that certain believers really believe the happiness of his eternal soul is dependent upon his relation to God. Of course, this is only possible if you're not projecting your own agnostic liturgy upon believers, where religious expression can be nothing other than self-expression. And I'm not even going to discuss what hidden reasons you might have for doing so, as if I could divine your motives. I certainly admit there’s a measure of honest-to-God uncertainty. quote: I already told you I think his position was essentially religious, as in making a commitment to something, come what may, in the lack of comprehensive knowledge. Otherwise, I simply affirmed that his atheism or anti-theism was real and may have real Theological consequences, and thus tried not to "underestimate how deeply he believed in it and how central it was to him." quote: I never doubted that believed he was correct, which is a truism for all. What's the point to be made? Have you ever doubted that those who hold wrong answers, at least at some point, think they're really correct, as well as those who hold right (or better) answers? His terms were rational. His ideas were not always rational. For example. He conceded the possibility of good or bad in every realm of knowledge and discipline, except for religion. Religion poisons everything, is not a rational statement. It is obviously a dogma (though dogma can rational too). You, though calling his belief religious (In what sense you mean this, I'm not quite sure), don't seem to be recognizing where his creed annexes or undermines the cool literary rationalism he portrayed. quote: Could you be more specific here, and cite what you’re referring to? quote: Is it possible to see different perspectives as contradictory, when they're not? Certainly this pre-Judaic conception of Satan is different than the Christian one, but not in conflict. As someone who is attempting to alienate Job from God and vice-versa, he can easily be understood in the context of slanderer (devil) and therefore adversary. He’s up to no good in either context, and to suggest radically different conceptions is splitting heirs. Christians are heirs of both conceptions, and theirs is at least partially derived from that which came earlier. quote: In what sense spiteful and humanly understandable? To find a place for human ambiguity, within Theology, is very much reasonable. If God is not humanly understandable in a comprehensive way (the argument of Job’s friends), and not altogether incomprehensible (the nihilistic argument of Job’s wife), we are given the option of a more nuanced view ... an incarnational God, who reveals himself, who has purpose in the good as well as the bad in life, but is not constrained to our own simplistic syllogisms. John: quote: Old argument, but it is only rational if we consider ourselves possessing all the information. If we have ever conceded that good can sometimes come from "evil", then we should be able to admit that it is possible that unforseen good, by God's grace, might come of the kinds of evils you've mentioned too. Or if not direct good coming from evil, at least the arrival of certain kinds of good and healing which could render past evils innocuous. We certainly haven't seen all the ends of the meanness you've mentioned. It makes just as much sense (I would say more since it allows ALL kinds of data, seredipitous good as well as seemingly random evil) to believe that God's allowance of temporal evil may be somehow justified. It just takes a different kind of faith, not the kind of humanistic faith which says "we know all the information needed to either take God to court, or to strip him of his divinity in exchange for our ever-gracious exoneration". Okay, there. You can be god now. quote: I have to suggest that your reading, though not entirely incorrect, is at least narrow here. Taken in context, this "Who are you?" section is less severe than one might think. God begins and ends the book with nothing but praise for Job. While his so-called "friends" seemed to take the hard-line view that God’s dealings with men are simple and he should not be questioned, they were not the ones who were favored. Job’s questioning, beckoned correction, but not out and out rebuke. I consider the answer of God to Job to be rough-and-tumble, and good-natured. I don’t get the undercurrent of contempt you detect, rather the contrary. quote: Surely there is a great difference. And yet replacement is too radical. Fulfillment is the better pattern. Jesus, though the embodiment of God’s love rather than law, certainly uttered some hard sayings. And his grace didn’t soft-pedal the righteous requirements of God one bit. Consider the possibility of a less-complete revelation giving away to a fuller one, without the losing the organic connection and common characteristics. For while fulfillment explains mutual characteristics in both (the hard green fruit has the same shape as the ripe sweet one), replacement makes no sense of either. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Okay, Stephen. I can’t imagine why you want the material, but here is at least some of it. I grew up around this stuff. If you wanto to find it presented in a really decent fashion, you might try the novel, The Last of The Just, by the french author Andre Schwartz-Bart. His novel is very well researched — that is, he’s got his facts straight, and he manages to make it one of the most moving books I’ve ever read, and not because it’s about Jews, but because it’s about transcendence. It’s well worth the reading, if you can find it. It’d out of print, but usually available in good libraries and on line, used. Amazing and shattering, both. For convenience, the first listing is about the burning of the Talmud. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0019_0_19544.html quote: quote: And here are some more references. http://www.zionism-israel.com/his/judeophobia5.htm http://www.geschichteinchronologie.ch/judentum-aktenlage/IL/Kovner-Reisinger -d/titelblatt-engl.jpg http://jewishhistory.org.il/history.php?search=jews I can probably dig up more with more detail, though I can’t for the life of me imagine why you’d be interested in this stuff. I read it and I start to get depressed all over again about the nature of men and the nature of religion, and it get’s me angry at people who want to defend to sort of people who would justify this sort of stuff, or pretend it didn’t happen. It’s pretty dismal. |
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Huan Yi Member Ascendant
since 2004-10-12
Posts 6688Waukegan |
. “Old argument, but it is only rational if we consider ourselves possessing all the information. If we have ever conceded that good can sometimes come from "evil", then we should be able to admit that it is possible that unforseen good, by God's grace, might come of the kinds of evils you've mentioned too. Or if not direct good coming from evil, at least the arrival of certain kinds of good and healing which could render past evils innocuous. We certainly haven't seen all the ends of the meanness you've mentioned. “ I’m sorry Stephen but if I believed there was an omnipotent god who would use the injury to innocent children, ( either through a Hitler who gases a daughter with her mother or a sexual predator who rapes and then buries a little girl alive), I would be worst than Hitch for I would do everything in my power here or in any after to cut that god’s throat. If God were all powerful and good, God would never resort to atrocities I , a mere man, even in my unbridled dreams would contemplate. My personal reconciliation between God and ugly human history is a God whose kingdom is not of this world. . |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
John, I don't know if you known the Anthony Hecht poem, "More Light! More Light!" It was once more well known than it now is, but it's a remarkably powerful and very precisely focused poem about the Problem of Evil. Jews, Poles, Nazis, under 40 lines and as good as anything written in English by anybody, ever. Enjoy! would not be the right word, since I'm still as shaken by the thing as when I first read it in the late sixties, but I hope it will mean as much to you as it does to me in terms of bearing the unbearable. http://poemhunter.com/poem/more-light-more-light/ |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Bob: quote: Bob, all I asked was for you to indicate (a sentence or two would have been fine) what you were referring to so generally, not to cut and paste the encyclopedia of injustices against Jews throughout all time. I wanted to know what you meant about Christians burning Jewish wisdom literature simply because it was written "after the death of Jesus". Even the material you pasted shows this isn't the case, as the events you refer to happened in the 12th century, and so could have had nothing to do with chronology. Otherwise your regurgitative and intolerably long copy-and-paste post, has very little to do with what I asked from YOU. I support this by noting that your material included episodes where Jews and Christians suffered forced conversions to Islam. What does that have to do with the price of Tea in Mongolia? Yes, the Talmud was ordered to be burned in Paris by a certain Pope, but the whole scandal was initiated by a Jew ... Nicholas Donin, a Jewish convert to Christianity who was most likely not a true convert at all, but seeking revenge for previously being excommunicated from the Synagogue, by bringing charges against the Jews regarding their writings. Did anti-semitism exist within the Christian churches? Sadly yes, sometimes, and always against the tenets of Christian scripture. And it cannot be defended, ever, nor is it by me. But we already agree that there is and has been religious conflict, and atrocities done in the name of religion. So why post an insufferably long excerpt, not to be read (I'm sure you didn't really intend that), but to merely make your position's credibility seem equal to the word count. Do you think I couldn't also provide multiple page after page of good and humane instances of religious expression throughout history, a panegyric of religious virtue? Of course I could, if I didn't think it would be unnecessary ineffective and jejune in the context of reasoned debate. I would like you, however, to comment on the other 99% of my former post, without all the wiki-mania, when you have the time. quote: No, no, please ... you did just fine. Though I'd want a bit more focus on the question I actually asked next time, your attention to detail (in which, in this case, the devil truly lies) is impeccable. quote: It is indeed dismal. But it is also a partial picture. It is not that I am pretending these things didn't happen, I just have to point out that a whole lot more has happened than your screed includes, and that I differ in your conclusions. John: quote: God allowing evil to have a certain amount of freedom, which means human freedom, does not equate to his 'resorting' to evil. From a race who, perhaps more than anything, wants autonomy, and whose objections to God typically play on how little 'freedom' he gives, it is hard to fathom the argument that God allows too much. But if you consider that God has both limited evil, and given all the good human impulses that tend to counter it, it may be rash to say that unless God directly intervenes in evil every time, he himself is evil. You haven't seen the end of the story. Nor do you fully understand the story you see. Nor have you considered a possible perspective that may be larger than our own blinding pain and emotion. I don't mean to trivialize human pain. But I don't think a good Theodicy, like the book of Job, does so. That's where the "Kingdom not of this World" becomes relevant. But if there is recognition of what God has already done, and does in the world, and the hope that more good may yet to come, that's where "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ" becomes relevant. I just think there's another option than to say that only when God ceases to be all-powerful can I believe his goodness. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
Okay, Stephen, http://www.amazon.com/Constantines-Sword-Church-Jews-History/dp/0618219080 The incident is covered in here. The author is James Carroll, a former priest. I am thrilled to know that Nicholas Donin was “a Jewish convert to Christianity who was most likely not a true convert at all, but seeking revenge for previously being excommunicated from the Synagogue, by bringing charges against the Jews regarding their writings.” For a moment, I thought some Christians might have been held responsible in the making of this film. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Donin |
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Stephanos
since 2000-07-31
Posts 3618Statesboro, GA, USA |
Thanks Bob, It does look like an interesting read. Stephen |
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Bob K Member Elite
since 2007-11-03
Posts 4208 |
It's a thrilling, judicious, compassionate and thoughtful read. I think it may be a bit hard on the Catholics, but I think the reason for that is because Carroll sees so many possibilities for them that I don't think I did. Were I Catholic, however, I would have been a very happy man to have had a pastor like that, and knowing that there are Christians in the clergy like him even today is one of the things that makes me pleased with so many of the Christians I know. Deeply spiritual, deeply compassionate people, they are, who can look at the depths of their faith and themselves and accept themselves with a sort of profound and opening joy. You can see Christ as a mediating spirit functioning in folks like this that helps them deal with the world in a very fine way without trying to rationalize reality away. I found this book deeply humane and loving at the same time that it covers such very painful material. I found it good for my soul. I hope that you give it a shot; though it asks an awful lot, I found that it returned even more. |
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