Happy Birthday, Hitch!

[chimp3]

None of what you said about him is a requirement to criticize religion. That is why many love Hitch. He was none of the above, a journalist only, and tore religious pundits a new asshole every time he debated.

Huh.. sounds like you didn't watch many debates of his, namely the ones with John Lennox / WLC -both professional philosophers of religion -on, "Hitch" was torn apart. He just manages to keep his composure by clever rhetorical gymnastics. He doesn't offer more than that in all of his debates.

He trashed Lennox. Craig is a moron.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

This board is pathetic. The guy is a fucking journalist. Read the word carefully : journalist. Not a philosopher, not a biologist, nor an expert in any Abrahamic religion, the classical "thought crime" criticism he invokes so often doesn't even exist in Islam.

Okay, oratory skill, aside from that, the most boring, hateful antitheist.

And still wrote better than the pedophiles who wrote the Koran, aka Pig Sty Management Manual.

[Belacqua]

The guy is a fucking journalist.

His journalistic standards dropped way off when he became a propagandist.

The God is Not Great book relies on anecdote. He takes quotes from the very worst people and pretends that they are representative. In cases where actual research would be relevant he ignores data to focus on nasty things people have said. He twists explanations to blame religion where it's irrelevant, for example calling Soviet experiments in genetics "papal" because they ignored settled science for political reasons -- never mind that the politics was anti-religion.

In the end he was advocating war based on WMDs which more careful journalists were far more skeptical about. In other words, he believed in things that didn't exist and advocated violence based on fantasy -- exactly what he says "religion" leads to.

[The Valkyrie]

This board is pathetic. The guy is a fucking journalist. Read the word carefully : journalist. Not a philosopher, not a biologist, nor an expert in any Abrahamic religion, the classical "thought crime" criticism he invokes so often doesn't even exist in Islam.

Okay, oratory skill, aside from that, the most boring, hateful antitheist.

Any credibility you may have had was lost when you mentioned the professional idiot WLC. You may as well invoke Ray Comfort as a leading mind of our times.

Oh, and if you don't like the board, feel free to pack your propaganda and fuck off.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The guy is a fucking journalist.

His journalistic standards dropped way off when he became a propagandist.

The God is Not Great book relies on anecdote. He takes quotes from the very worst people and pretends that they are representative. In cases where actual research would be relevant he ignores data to focus on nasty things people have said. He twists explanations to blame religion where it's irrelevant, for example calling Soviet experiments in genetics "papal" because they ignored settled science for political reasons -- never mind that the politics was anti-religion.

In the end he was advocating war based on WMDs which more careful journalists were far more skeptical about. In other words, he believed in things that didn't exist and advocated violence based on fantasy -- exactly what he says "religion" leads to.

By ‘the very worst people’, I assume you mean the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa?

Boru

[Belacqua]

I think the way to read Hitchens' role in the media would be through the lens of Umberto Eco or Baudrillard's semiotics and critique of simulacra. They wrote about how, in a world saturated by corporate media, the fake always drives out the real.

(Remember Baudrillard's joke that America needs the fake level of Disneyland in order to maintain the illusion that the rest of the country is real.)

So there is a niche for a bold truth-teller, a harsh social critic, and a killer of sacred cows. We are eager for someone to take that role. The trouble is that anyone who can sell books and get famous can't really do those things. So the media promotes a fake or fetish, who appears to take that role but in the long run supports the corporate status quo. He's not a gadfly, but he plays one on TV.

So Hitchens attacks the easiest possible version of some big amorphous thing called "religion," which he never defines. He takes the worst examples, which anyone who reads books already hates. He flatters his audience into thinking that we are superior to those dumb Christians and terrorist Muslims, by pretending that all Christians and Muslims are as he portrays them.

He works hard to belittle just about the only system in the world which could possibly provide an alternative to capitalism. (And the fact that religion barely even does that any more just shows how trivial his attacks are in the long run.)

But in the end what does he support? The Neoliberal status quo, George Bush's wars, our own smugness.

[Fake Messiah]

So Hitchens attacks the easiest possible version of some big amorphous thing called "religion," which he never defines. He takes the worst examples, which anyone who reads books already hates.

Really, everyone already hated Mother Theresa?

You obviously don't know what you're talking about. Hitchens completely debunked Mother Theresa, he wiped the floor with William Lane Craig and so on, and all his clueless critics have to say is "he is just a journalist".

Mother Theresa is now the worst example of religion, as you say, but she wasn't back when Hitchens started unmasking her.

[Belacqua]

I think it's natural that people would react emotionally in defense of their sacred cows.

Any group which is based on what one does or doesn't believe -- in which scientific proof is not possible -- will need rallying points or symbols. Holy blessed martyrs, admirable wits, etc. Their importance to the group grows beyond the real quality of their work.

Here's a post made on this forum in November of last year:

If i am asked to born again with which name and personality(alas not possible) i will prefer to be Hitchens.
History can't produce another Christopher.I not only love him but worship him(Excuse me for using word worship).
If anyone could use maximum IQ,he would not be Einstein but Christopher Hitchens.
Thou(World) take my everything but return Hitchens to me.
Tears in my eyes while writing it.A strange connection to the man of words and intelligence.This is how it goes on.
BrianSoddingBoru4 thank you very much to mention him and keeping him alive.

I used to follow Peter Hitchens on Twitter. Just about every week someone would tell him that the wrong brother had died. I don't think that normal admiration for a writer can cause that level of insensitivity. C. Hitchens has reached Mother Teresa levels among some people.

[Succubus#2]

I used to follow Peter Hitchens on Twitter. Just about every week someone would tell him that the wrong brother had died. I don't think that normal admiration for a writer can cause that level of insensitivity. C. Hitchens has reached Mother Teresa levels among some people.

Forget Iraq and politics for now just stick with his religious marks.
When was Hitchens wrong?

[Little lunch]

Each to their own.
I found him to be a little smug.
Sam Harris is more my cup of tea.
And sometimes Hitchens was a bit of cunt, especially to anyone who he thought was intellectually lesser than his great self.
(That's us.)
Of course I would have been as star struck as anyone if I'd met him in person.


Anyway, does anyone else feel a similarity between him and Robert Palmer?
I think of him when I hear Robert's songs sometimes.