(April 20, 2016 at 4:08 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote:(April 20, 2016 at 10:03 am)Brian37 Wrote: Rob, I normally agree with you 99% of the time, but the truth is if we stand by our own logic that there is no afterlife the Hitchens himself isn't being hurt by this one bit because he is nowhere now in realty outside the memories of those who knew him.
It is immoral not because Hitchens is hurt by it, he'd dead. It is dishonest because he's not around to defend himself now, on top of your standard selection bias and sample rate error, and logical fallacies. The living are reacting to this tactic, not the dead, they cant.
When I die myself, I really don't want those who survive me to give one fuck about those who hate me or what they say, I won't be alive to care. I'd want the human decency face to face in the direct physical moment of morning for those who survive me who knew me, sure, but for them, not me. Outside that personal face to face moment especially with celebrities it's going to happen in all directions and you wont stop it.
I don't think Hitchens would give one fuck about what people say about him, he was perfectly willing to take the heat. But even in "God Is Not Great" he did have the decency in the face to face moment, in person, to value the rights of others. Even he talked of taking his shoes off entering a Mosque or Buddhist temple, but as we also know he also was no fan of taboos or blasphemy.
So attack the bad logic yes, but the idiots making these bad arguments were not at his funeral in real life. And any of his theists friends that might have attended in reality, would have kept their mouths shut at that physical event. I wouldn't call it "disrespect" as much as I would call it "intellectually dishonest".
As a writer myself, by avocation, I respectfully disagree. I want my words to stand as my only possible attempt at life after death. I find this treatment of Hitch disrespectful not to him personally -- you're right, he's dead, he doesn't now care -- but to have a "friend" attempt to undermine your legacy is, in a sense, an attempt to abnegate one's life's work, to call it meaningless.
I know this: If I ever become well-known, I'll make sure my last words are "I do not believe". And I'll make sure there's a recording of the event.
I need to start a thread about the words "respect and disrespect" I really hate those words.
The problem with those words is that they are subject to the point of view of the user and while one can make a case for the intent behind it, they are still abused words that far too often mean "don't bruise my ego" and "know your place".
Now seriously, think in scientific terms knowing Hitchens is not alive anymore, how he can be physically hurt? He wasn't hurt by religion prior to his birth was he? No, so again, the reaction to this is about the living, not the dead.
I loved Hitchen's work, but he was by no means a perfect human and I did not agree with everything he said. He supported the Iraq war and that was a mistake, regardless of him pointing out rightfully Saddam's religious rise to power people mistake for secular nationalism. He drank and smoked and that killed him, and even he admitted maybe he shouldn't have done so much of that.
I don't say "respect" I say value. I value most of his logic but you cant physically hurt the dead after they die. His logic SHOULD be valued, yes, but he isn't an idol, and never was.
If you are going to go after his critics, that part is fine, I agree, but he's dead, what matters is his ideas, his body is long gone. His ideas are not meaningless, no, but in cosmic time nobody is important. His ideas are valuable, not the atoms that his body constantly recycled throughout his life which as individual atoms have no capability of caring who lives or dies. The universe is much older than Hitchens and there will be a time when our species will not exist as well, friend and foe alike.
You value his ideas yes, but in that process don't worship him, he was just as finite as any other human and had his own flaws as well. That is why I say what matters is the intellectually dishonesty of their tactics, not their free speech itself.
