Critique of "God is Not Great" by Christoper Hitchens

[Angrboda]

If no mention of axioms or containing theory is made, it's still true to say that an unconscious analysis of sorts may have occurred, it is true to say that Christopher's mind will have scanned the religious texts and extracted meaning from them. It's essentially a "trust my own mind's interpretations without bothering to check the reasonableness of my interpretations" sort of analysis. Using the language of psychology this is called a concrete operational or pre-rational analysis. As an example of the sort of conclusions this thinking style arrives at, if applied to the physical world, concrete operational analysis reveals that the earth is flat, and reveals that the earth is in the centre of the solar system. Because that's how it looks, right? It's obvious to anyone who simply trusts his or her direct subjective perception (and does not bother to look any more deeply into the situation) that the earth is flat and that the sun is going round the earth.

In this "lacking any rational analysis" respect, Christopher's analysis of religion shares certain themes with the biblical analysis of reality. The situation as noted by Christopher is simply reported without justification and explanation, the reader is expected to take the reasonableness of Christopher's interpretation completely on faith. Christopher it seems has missed out on the single key insight of postmodern philosophy and developmental psychology in the last 100 years, which is that there is no "literal" reading of any text, all reading is relative to a particular human perspective and the correct perspective to use to read a text is the perspective of the person who wrote the text.

In the same way that a lack of mention of container theory or axioms evidences a lack of rational analysis, a lack of mention of perspective evidences a lack of consideration of perspective. In fact, the word "perspective" appears just a single time in the entire book, in the following sentence, which is not in connection with his own understanding of the writings he is analysing "Looking back down the perspective of time".

Naive psychologizing is naive.

Christopher it seems can take a good rational perspective on the objective world (he understands genetics, evolution, physics) but (with his lack of awareness of human perspective) he lacks seems to lack the capacity to take rational perspectives on the subjective writings of other humans - he cannot take rational perspectives on human perspectives.

Fixed that for you.  That you've come to this conclusion I have no doubt; whether it's a factual conclusion I have great doubts about.

An analysis of Christopher's writing from the framework and axioms of developmental psychology (see what I did there?) clearly pin-points Christopher's own level of psychological development.

More naive psychologizing.

But nevertheless, Christopher's perspective is a perspective we all go through. In the developed world, a human typically enters this perspective around the age of 12 and many people never actually move beyond it. And within that perspective his writing perhaps has value for people who are attempting to step out of (religious) thinking styles that are even more ancient than Christopher's own rather obsolete enlightenment perspective. Within that context, this is a great book! However, deep thinkers and people at the leading edge of contemporary human thinking may struggle with boredom when reading 300 pages of writing whose greatest intellectual achievement is to notice how primitive primitive people are and how inexplicably nonsensical human knowledge sounds when read from the incorrect perspective of a perspective that is different from the perspective it was written.

In his talk[1], Christopher starts by explaining his basic issue with religion, which is that religion represents a primitive human understanding from the childhood of humanity. This is clearly a valid criticism of the religious worldview, a worldview which of and by itself lacks sufficient explanatory power to understand the modern scientific world. But the same criticism can in a sense be levelled at Christopher's own 300 year old enlightenment perspective which I would argue equally offers insufficient explanatory power in a world of multiple developmental worldviews, worldviews that in the present era have suddenly been pulled very tightly together in the information age of the Internet and global communications.

Your evidence that Hitchens' worldview is stuck at this level is hardly compelling and resembles a beginner's explanation of the WIFOM deductions.  You've got speculative notions about what implies what, and because you lack the "perspective" to see alternate possibilities, these speculative notions harden into facts in your mind.

It may well be great fun and very satisfying to mock other people's primitive beliefs as Christopher does in his book because doing so leaves us feeling smug and superior, but surely at some point we've actually got to find a way to constructively share the same planet with people who may perhaps be more elemental than ourselves. And preferably, without engaging in or attracting the fighting, violence, and suicide bombing which appear to be evidence in the present era of a clash of developmental worldviews.

So he didn't address your concerns about finding "a way to constructively share the same planet," I don't see this as anything other than a complaint that he didn't write the book that you feel he should have.  There may be many reasons for such, that only a few of them are touched on by your psychologizing explanations is a failure of your analysis to account for other possible reasons why he wrote the book the way he did.  Sometimes it's good to simply mock; did it not occur to you that perhaps that is all he sought to accomplish?

How about by raising Christopher's agenda to it's own expectations of rationality and conducting a rational analysis of religion that seeks to understand, rather than a pre-rational flat earth analysis that can do nothing more than ridicule and judge.

More wishing for the book that he didn't write.

I think Christopher is correct in his final conclusion of the need of a new enlightenment but incorrect in his regressive conclusion that this will be achieved by resurrecting 300 year old European enlightenment perspectives and forcing them down the throat of human brothers and sisters who happen to be at lower levels of development.

Does Hitchens actually say this, or is this more of your psychologizing?

[Cato]

"Philosobabble" isn't a rational term, it's an (irrational) term that's evidence of defensivity.

With respect, I think the rational conversation is over.

Fine way to take your ball and go home.

My use of philosobabble seems to have been understood. Your claim of defensivity is also laughable in that my use of this pejorative term was quite aggressive supported by my exposition of your confused use of well established terminology. Your continuous, and what I must now conclude intentional, obfuscation when challenged is a more appropriate illustration of defensive behavior. Your interaction to this point is indicative of someone that can't entertain the possibility of being mistaken.

I simply pointed out that you engaged in the same behavior you were criticizing; i.e., vomiting unsupported claims. Instead of supporting your claims you went down the path of rationalizing your behavior and seemingly not affording Hitchens and others the same consideration. This is precisely why I have concluded that in your mind you can never be wrong solidified by the fact that you insinuate that I'm the one being irrational.

[downbeatplumb]

What practical use is it to say everything is "in some way" true? I agree things can be true in different ways. That's clear.

If you're allowed to project whatever you want into the statement in question, then it barely means anything anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSOBeD1GC_Y

[Heat]

This is RobValue's website:
http://robvalue.wix.com/atheism#!logical-fallacies/cwi1

Read this, edit your wall of text, and if it's not blank by the end, feel free to post what you have left.

[Spooky]

God is not great is a decent book, at least compared to the drivel that the religious community spews forth.  My biggest personal critique of the book is that it really isn't written at a level that is approachable to the masses.  He doesn't help the stereotype of the "Elitist Atheist".

"A Universe from Nothing" is a better book personally.  Oh well, we'll all be atheists after we die.