Critique of "God is Not Great" by Christoper Hitchens

[Dystopia]

I actually didn't like God Is Not Great... It's not bad, it's just meh... A little boring, too predictable. Not that the bible is better, I just didn't enjoy the book that much. I'm more interested in philosophy-like books contradicting the god hypothesis.

[phil-lndn]

Phil: I have no idea what you're talking about I'm afraid.

Here's a story:

God just told me I'm in charge of the world now. Then he destroyed himself.

Is this story true in some way, because it's a story?

Yes. You might find this argument a bit of a mind-twisting to follow though I'm afraid.

To make your statement meaningful, we have to relativise the statement against the full perspective context it was written from. Part of considering a perspective fully is to understand the person's motives for making statement, that's particularly important here, because your motive is to say whatever needs to be said to disprove what I said. So the objective meaning of the words has to be completely ignored, and nothing more than the subjective agenda of the words considered. 

So your story is "the story of disproving my story".

And (insofar as it disproves my story) - it's a TRUE story, because it undermines what I said. 

Except only from a perspective, because by deconstructing it I can (and have) undermine it by differentiating it's communication into objective and subjective dimensions and noting that only the latter is significant.

[robvalue]

No, I don't know what you're talking about. Sorry.

I'm relaying a story. I'm asking if the story is true or not, in that did the events I described actually happen, or not?

We can learn about my motivations, perhaps. But that's not what I'm asking. It doesn't undermine what you've said if you just say my story is true, which is what you've been saying of all stories.

[LadyForCamus]

Okay, but keep in mind that most of us around here don't hero worship, so if you think you are "taking us down" just because you have objections to one book written by one atheist, you're swinging at nothing.  Personally, I preferred The God Delusion by R. Dawkins over GING, but that's just me.    

OK, although I do like to keep my opinions facts-based, so with respect, rather than simply believing what you say is true, my opinion on whether or not I am "swinging at nothing" will be decided the basis of how much defensive behaviour shows up in this thread.

Actually I do think most who have posted have handled the challenge pretty well, but I think it would be incorrect to say that there has been zero defensive behaviour on this thread.

I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood what I meant by 'swinging at nothing,' or maybe I wasn't clear. Of course there will be some atheists here who will take a defensive position in regards to your specific post. There may be some atheists here who hate Hitchens and agree with you. There may be some who don't have an opinion one way or the other because they haven't read the book.

My point is, whether or not your critique of GING is founded has no bearing on the position of atheism in general. In other words, we don't worship atheist books or authors in the same way theists worship holy books, so criticizing one particular book about atheism is NOT a take down of atheism as a position. Hopefully I have cleared things up!

[phil-lndn]

Do you not think that perhaps a rational thinker would have asked me what evidence I had to support the theory?

No. The point of my reply wasn't discovery. Much of your criticism hinges on what you deem are unsubstantiated claims, yet you engage in the same practice. Is holding and practicing a double standard rational?

Yes it is fully rational, all claims are unsubstantiated in an absolute sense because logic is axiomatic.

Where I hope to differ from Christopher is (a) I hope I'm not over-extending myself by making "we can be as sure as we can probably need be" type truth claims about a situation that existed on the other side of the big bang singularity, and (b) I'm here available to answer your questions about what I have written. If I wasn't here, and I posted something whose givens you could not accept and did not remain to answer your questions, your criticism of my writing would be valid.

[robvalue]

Well indeed, I don't actually care what Hitchins, or anyone else, writes. Who writes it is of no consequence, except perhaps to get an idea of whether it's worth reading in the first place.

So the one to take it up with would be Hitchins, unfortunately that's not possible. There is no atheist dogma of agreeing, even partially, with anything he says. So I still don't get the point.

[phil-lndn]

I take a perspective-centric view of reality, which arrives at the conclusion that all stories about reality are true, but only true from a perspective. So all stories are simultaneously true (descriptive of reality) and untrue (they are all simply stories).

How do you assess whether or not the story you are being told is an apporximate description of reality; i.e., actually occurred versus being a complete fabrication?

I can't be certain based on your limited input on the matter, but you're coming across as someone that is wrestling with well documented issues with the accuracy of eye witness testimony and the fact that our sense perception gives an incomplete assessment of reality. I stressed 'incomplete' because I typically encounter people that abuse this fact in order to claim that since our knowledge is incomplete then all claims carry a measure of truth to them which couldn't be farther from the truth. Again, until you explain more precisely what you mean I am speculating.

My perspective-centric view of reality makes "complete fabrication" impossible, because I consider 3 dimensions of meaning in a text:

1/ Subjective
2/ Intersubjective
3/ Objective

Whatever anyone says is always meaningful from 1 or more of these dimensions of meaning. Sometimes the content of one or more of the dimensions lacks meaning, but that does not undermine the fact the text itself is meaningful.

Example: a harry potter book lacks meaningful Objective information (it's not factual reporting, and the cause and effect relationships described in the book are not rational) but it contains Subjective information (we know from the fact of the story's existence that the author had a desire to write the story) and Intersubjective information - the story is a delightful story that provides pleasure for the reader.

[Cato]

No. The point of my reply wasn't discovery. Much of your criticism hinges on what you deem are unsubstantiated claims, yet you engage in the same practice. Is holding and practicing a double standard rational?

Yes it is fully rational, all claims are unsubstantiated in an absolute sense because logic is axiomatic.

Then you are left with no grounds to criticize others for what you assert are unsubstantiated claims. If this is your true position, you are a hypocrite and your criticism lacks merit; however, I think this is just a an attempt to save face.

[phil-lndn]

No, I don't know what you're talking about. Sorry.

I'm relaying a story. I'm asking if the story is true or not, in that did the events I described actually happen, or not?

We can learn about my motivations, perhaps. But that's not what I'm asking. It doesn't undermine what you've said if you just say my story is true, which is what you've been saying of all stories.

OK I can see from what you've reflected back at me that nothing I said made any sense . 

I'm not sure if i can help very much, other than say that if any of this sounds even vaguely interesting I suggest getting into posmodern philosophy and psychology.

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OK, although I do like to keep my opinions facts-based, so with respect, rather than simply believing what you say is true, my opinion on whether or not I am "swinging at nothing" will be decided the basis of how much defensive behaviour shows up in this thread.

Actually I do think most who have posted have handled the challenge pretty well, but I think it would be incorrect to say that there has been zero defensive behaviour on this thread.

I'm sorry, I think you misunderstood what I meant by 'swinging at nothing,' or maybe I wasn't clear.  Of course there will be some atheists here who will take a defensive position in regards to your specific post.  There may be some atheists here who hate Hitchens and agree with you.  There may be some who don't have an opinion one way or the other because they haven't read the book.  

My point is, whether or not your critique of GING is founded has no bearing on the position of atheism in general.  In other words, we don't worship atheist books or authors in the same way theists worship holy books, so criticizing one particular book about atheism is NOT a take down of atheism as a position.  Hopefully I have cleared things up!

OK, although as mentioned I'll be making my own mind up on that. I don't just take people's word for things, I'm more concerned with building fact-based opinions than taking things on faith.

[robvalue]

I appreciate you trying, but you're using the word "true" in a way that doesn't seem to mean anything.

It's true that I wrote the story, for whatever reason I wrote it. That's just a tautology. It's not necessarily true that my story undermines your story, it may have failed utterly. If it's only true that I intended to undermine you (and that was an assumption on your part, it wasn't part of the story) then that's not saying much useful.

I agree that you need to view things in context, and to see what you can really learn from it, regardless of whether the events happened as written. Is this what you're trying to say? If not, I have no clue and I'll have to give up. I'm all for philosophy, but when it gets to the point where you're assigning labels and meanings that apply equally to everything, they no longer have any significance.