1. Comment #94065 by BAEOZ on December 4, 2007 at 5:12 pm

Hitch has such a grasp of history and ideas. Astonishing.

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2. Comment #94069 by PrimeNumbers on December 4, 2007 at 5:22 pm

I laugh so much at the Christians putting up trees and the like, something that is expressly prohibited in their Bible as a pagan thing they should not do! It's hilarious how Christians don't even know their own religion and that those of us who don't believe in their silly canabilism cult know more about their history and holy book than they do!

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3. Comment #94070 by LeeLeeOne on December 4, 2007 at 5:22 pm

What I have found, through much of history, is that the human memory is clay - it is short, it is finite, it is pliable, and it is more often than not but a mere image of what we imagine, not reality. I have never been one to trump-up (i.e. participate in) traditions and Hitchens' observations of "traditions" reinforces my personal convictions. These very convictions I was able to demonstrate (not force, not threaten, not demand) to my progeny. I am fortunate to live in these enlightening times. Thank you Mr. Hitchens, and Dr. Dawkins for this site! For added insight, perhaps more readers should listen to the Thomas Jefferson Hour on NPR.

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4. Comment #94088 by Jack Rawlinson on December 4, 2007 at 6:31 pm

ANTI-SEMITE!

Sorry, just thought I'd anticipate the empty-headed moron response. :-)

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5. Comment #94089 by Theocrapcy on December 4, 2007 at 6:33 pm

LeeLeeOne, what we see moment by moment is merely a representation of the world - the brain "fills-in" much of what we sense and in effect we float in a virtual world of our making. Imagine then how unreliable collective memory is - but I am sure there is a biological reason for this, I guess the capacity to heal is one of them. But it doesn't do so well when we choose to forget or rewrite history and make the same mistakes, or learn from past ones. But I also find it astonishing how some harmful memes (ie bad faith) cling on for centuries.

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6. Comment #94091 by Kakashi_monkey on December 4, 2007 at 6:42 pm

My. I had no idea that Judiasm caused all of this trouble! Evil has to have its roots somewhere.
Despite this, I respect Judiasm more than christianity or Islam. Christians and Muslims abuse others and conquer thier neighbors in the name of their god, but not Jews (that I know of). Christians and Muslims made the most of themselves with their wickedness; Judiasm is still mild. So, in a way, Jews should be applauded.
(If I'm wrong about any of this, let me know.)

Other Comments by Kakashi_monkey

7. Comment #94092 by gr8hands on December 4, 2007 at 6:42 pm

The article was not accurately reposted. The fourth sentence in the first paragraph made no sense, so I looked at the original.

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8. Comment #94095 by Cartomancer on December 4, 2007 at 6:48 pm

I spent most of today festooning my house with gaudy sparkling things and kitsch seasonal tat. Actually I rather enjoy this sort of thing, but not wishing to conform entirely to the popular stereotypes about my kind I generally do not admit as much in public.

This got me thinking that, as one who has most assuredly turned to Athens and would never set foot in Jerusalem, even for the biggest piece of cake in the world, I should probably do something to mark the fact. An anti-hannukah if you will! Maybe I will make a little model of the Theatre of Dionysius with a production of Aristophanes' Frogs in full swing - much better than a manky old crib. Then we can have crackers with stoic maxims and paper hoplite helmets in them, an olive tree festooned with tinsel and a fat, bearded man dressed as Socrates giving out dialectical advice to the kiddies on the big day. We could sing the lay of Harmodius and Aristogeiton or the Ithyphallic hymn to Demetrius Poliorcetes as a prelude to the Bachanals, and relax in front of Plato's seasonal message at 3pm. Oh, and there would be gymnasiums full of beautiful, muscular young men wearing nothing but a drizzling of olive oil and wrestling with one another. I think I'm gonna like this, who is with me?!

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9. Comment #94100 by Don_Quix on December 4, 2007 at 7:08 pm

Genius! Santa nailed to a cross would make a perfect winter solstice tree topper :D

He died for our Yens!

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10. Comment #94124 by Bonzai on December 4, 2007 at 9:13 pm

Hmm.. Is Christopher trying to say something about Iraq?

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11. Comment #94134 by Eric Blair on December 4, 2007 at 10:03 pm

Beware Hitch bearing Greeks...

Pretty ill-tempered and over-the-top to make a vague seasonal point, seems to me. I haven't the knowledge or energy to sort out wheat from chaff here, but the Slate site has attracted many annoyed bloggers.

EB

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12. Comment #94149 by Robert Maynard on December 4, 2007 at 11:18 pm

It reads like a fiery blog entry by a teenage malcontent enthusiastic about his ancient history classes, and the line about Epicurus and Democritus "discovering" that the world is composed of atoms made me do a bit of a double take (Epicurus? ..I don't ..think so?), but I still thoroughly enjoyed reading this.

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13. Comment #94166 by Nuclearman on December 5, 2007 at 12:00 am

I enjoyed this read.

Robert Maynard: A couple of links for you regarding Epicurus and atoms. There was a school of thought along those lines in Greece; it wasn't only the purview of Democritus. See the following:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/ and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicureanism

Cheers.

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14. Comment #94177 by Philip1978 on December 5, 2007 at 12:51 am

Santa nailed to a cross, reminds me of one Christmas where I used to live with my folks.

There is a small shopping mall in the town centre and to sort of jazz it up a bit there is this glass tower that rises up beside it. So they managed to fit Santa's sleigh at the top of it with Santa supposedly climbing down a rope to deliver pressies. How ever, fake Santa slips off and the rope get caught around his neck leaving him hanging there on display. This happened during the busiest period leading up to xmas so there are all these kids walking past this glass tower with Santa swinging from his sleigh, caused mayhem it really did!

Philip

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15. Comment #94179 by Robert Maynard on December 5, 2007 at 1:16 am

Nuclearman
I was mainly concerned with the semantics of "discovery" - it was a philosophical conclusion, not an empirical enterprise. Democritus didn't "find out" that the world was composed of atoms, he reasoned that it is probably so (and happened to be sorta kinda right.. kinda)
I'm aware that Democritus didn't have a monopoly on thinking about the world as made of 'atoms' back then, and that Epicurus thought along the same lines, but come on.. he was born over a century after Democritus in the same country and was a student of philosophy. I think it's safe to say where he got these beliefs from.
Co-crediting Epicurus with the "discovery" of atoms is a double-whammy of flat-wrong.

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16. Comment #94197 by Northern Bright on December 5, 2007 at 2:28 am

Everybody knows, furthermore, that there was no moving star in the east

As it happens, I was at a talk at our local Astonomy Society just last night, about "The Christmas Star".

I was too irritated by the speaker's uncritical acceptance of the nativity story to pay great attention to the detail, but it seems that there were a number of conjunctions of planets between about 5BC and 1BC that would have created the illusion of a particularly bright new star - and, of course, the planets do move.

"Everybody knows" that sentences beginning with the words "Everybody knows" have a tendency to be rather suspect.

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17. Comment #94201 by SilentMike on December 5, 2007 at 2:33 am

Just once in over 2000 years we manage to win something and that bastard has to ruin it. Damn you Hitchens!

But seriously, I wouldn't oversell the humanitarianism and secularism of the hellenists. Part of the colture they brought was their pagan religion (which was every bit as stupid as ancient judaism) and they helped the jewish rebellion gain momentum by commiting the odd massacre from time to time (They made us learn that crap in History).

Funny thing is the Hasmoneans that ruled Judea after the rebellion actually did come to accept many greek infuences (Though they kept Judaism as the formal religion).

And besides the food is really good, so no way I'm giving this holiday up.

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18. Comment #94204 by gibodean on December 5, 2007 at 2:49 am

Kakashi_monkey said "Christians and Muslims abuse others and conquer thier neighbors in the name of their god, but not Jews (that I know of)"

Umm, Mr Monkey, have you not read the old testament ? Not only do the jews frequently conquer their neighbours by foul means, they kill all the men, rape all the virgins...

Sure, that's not recent, but it's still held up as a "good thing".

Other Comments by gibodean

19. Comment #94206 by CJ22 on December 5, 2007 at 3:00 am

"He died for our Yens!"
Brilliant.

I think this article is not to be taken as a serious plea to abandon the holiday. But it's important to rattle cages and to challenge uncritical assumptions sometimes.

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20. Comment #94225 by mjwemdee on December 5, 2007 at 3:46 am

A wonderful article. A joy to read.

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21. Comment #94230 by TimH on December 5, 2007 at 4:04 am

Marvellous - there's nothing like a good Hitchins demolition job the first thing in the morning.

It's awful when astronomers work hard to find "explanations" for the star in the east - there's no need, it was simply made up.

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22. Comment #94234 by mjwemdee on December 5, 2007 at 4:11 am

Yes, I fail to see why a planetary conjunction, even a close one, would look like a particularly bright new star.
Wouldn't two planets still look like two planets? And the conjunction wouldn't exactly come as a complete surprise. What little astronomy there is in the Bible at least recognises Venus. ('the evening star')

Of course, the clearest evidence of cosmic ignorance in the Scriptures is to be found in Solomon and in Psalm 104.

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23. Comment #94298 by Durandal on December 5, 2007 at 7:51 am

Hitchens has some points, but he wraps them up in such a mean-spirited derogatory cadence that I don't understand how anyone "enjoyed" reading this. As much as I would like everyone to wake up one morning and realize how silly their religious beliefs might be, I'm not looking for a smackdown, or a lot of "I told you so" moments. I'm not here to laugh and point at people because of their beliefs. This could have been toned down a bit.

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24. Comment #94303 by al-rawandi on December 5, 2007 at 8:07 am

I thought this was supposed to be about Hanukah? I would rather hear about that than Christmas.

In America it is a virtual crime to criticize Jews in any way. I wouldn't be surprised to hear a chorus of "Hitch is an anti-semite".

Anti-semitism is like a car alarm. There is always one going off, and people never bestir themselves do anything about it other than mumble how obnoxious it is.

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25. Comment #94316 by Goodwithwood on December 5, 2007 at 9:09 am

An interesting article about this at Hoff-Po

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-radosh/bah-hitchens_b_75270.html?refresh_comments=1

Other Comments by Goodwithwood

26. Comment #94319 by Luthien on December 5, 2007 at 9:31 am

"Everybody knows" that sentences beginning with the words "Everybody knows" have a tendency to be rather suspect.

Brilliant line, Northern Bright! I have it up as my Messenger "quote of the day" now :)

Other Comments by Luthien

27. Comment #94320 by Northern Bright on December 5, 2007 at 9:31 am

Yes, I fail to see why a planetary conjunction, even a close one, would look like a particularly bright new star.
Wouldn't two planets still look like two planets? And the conjunction wouldn't exactly come as a complete surprise. What little astronomy there is in the Bible at least recognises Venus. ('the evening star')

I don't have a problem with that, mjwemdee. I can easily imagine that 2 planets aligned in just the right way would present something unfamiliar in the sky and could be mistaken for a new star. And whilst it's true that astronomers back then wouldn't have been flummoxed by a planetary conjunction, it doesn't follow that the ordinary Gospel-writer-in-the-street would know what it was or that it had been expected.

Astronomical events were seen as portents of momentous events on Earth - which is why the gospel writers (actually only Matthew and Luke) include a bright star as part of their narrative. It's a kind of shorthand for "Jesus was divine." Much like the virgin birth. And the resurrection.

I absolutely agree we don't need to identify "the" astronomical event concerned, since what it's being linked with is an unproven and highly unlikely story anyway. But that's not to say that people at that time wouldn't have expected an unusual occurrence in the sky to be accompanied by an unusual event on Earth - and it does seem that there were quite a few unusual things going on in the sky during the last 5 years BC.

So you can see how the star story might have taken root in people's minds, and why it could be turned to good effect in the gospels.

Other Comments by Northern Bright

28. Comment #94482 by Russell's Teapot on December 5, 2007 at 6:39 pm

Umm, Mr Monkey, have you not read the old testament ?

Took the words right out of my mouth!

And if I recall correctly, the modern Jewish state has an extensive record of conquering and abusing its neighbors.

Other Comments by Russell's Teapot

29. Comment #94492 by Pilot22A on December 5, 2007 at 7:30 pm

I am wary of and find useless all religions - especially those that promote child abuse, i.e. cutting the foreskin off of an unsuspecting child who cannot give consent.

If one smacks their child, one can land in jail, but the Jewish Faith is allowed to mutilate a child in the name of some invisible useless god.

Go figure.

Other Comments by Pilot22A

30. Comment #94539 by Bonzai on December 6, 2007 at 12:49 am

It seems to me that Hitchens is trying to suggest some parallelism with Iraq. Maybe I am reading too much between the lines.

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31. Comment #94542 by Bonzai on December 6, 2007 at 1:06 am

IanG,

The Seleucid Empire, an inheritance of Alexander the Great—Alexander still being a popular name among Jews—had weaned many people away from the sacrifices, the circumcisions, the belief in a special relationship with God, and the other reactionary manifestations of an ancient and cruel faith. I quote Rabbi Michael Lerner, an allegedly liberal spokesman for Judaism who nonetheless knows what he hates:

Along with Greek science and military prowess came a whole culture that celebrated beauty both in art and in the human body, presented the world with the triumph of rational thought in the works of Plato and Aristotle, and rejoiced in the complexities of life presented in the theater of Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes.

But away with all that, says Lerner. Let us instead celebrate the Maccabean peasants who wanted to destroy Hellenism and restore what he actually calls "oldtime religion." His excuse for preferring fundamentalist thuggery to secularism and philosophy is that Hellenism was "imperialistic,

There seems to be some structural similarities to Hitchens' narrative on the Iraq's situation. U.S brings in enlightenment, fundamentalists insurgents mount attack to restore "old time religion" yada yada.

Other Comments by Bonzai

32. Comment #94547 by scottishgeologist on December 6, 2007 at 1:18 am

Northern Bright, et al, just a couple of little points - Luke doesnt mention the "star" - it is only mentioned in matthew.

Also, it is never described as bright. This is something that has been read into it. Herod is described as having to ask about the star, so it couldnt have been too obvious (if visible at all)

Regarding conjunctions, when astronomers talk of conjunctions, they dont normally refer to a planet directly positioned over another planet or star. That is an EXTREMELY rare event. Conjunctions ususally refer to two planets being CLOSE together, maybe a couple of degrees.

By using astronomical planetarium type software, you can plot all the conjunctions going back 1000s of years - there certainly werent any "two planets appearing as one" type events anywhere near the dates in question.

There are actualy only 2 explanations for the SOB -

1) It was "midrash" Basically Matthew made it up (lied like a cheap rug in other words...) This keeps the liberal christians happy

2) It was a supernatural event, visible only to the wise men. An example, perhaps of the "shekinah" the glory of God that appears as a bright light (Cf Pauls conversion, the transfiguration etc.) This explanation keeps the fundies happy (and is completely unfalsifiable)

I actually studied the SOB in great detail several years ago during my fundie days (shame, shame, shame... yes I know....) What Christians actually think they believe and what the Bible actually says are almost two different things

Of course, looking for an explanation is a waste of time anyway, since the whole thing is a pile o' pish....

Have a cool Yule, y'all!

SG

Other Comments by scottishgeologist

33. Comment #94598 by tman on December 6, 2007 at 3:16 am

WOH WOH WOH!

Hitches isn't an anti-semite. But Don't criticize people for call others out on it. It's alive and well in the US. I was raised jewish (not any more) but I've encountered a surprising amount of anti-semtizem first hand. It's odd and scary and for real.

Other Comments by tman

34. Comment #94603 by Northern Bright on December 6, 2007 at 3:30 am

By using astronomical planetarium type software, you can plot all the conjunctions going back 1000s of years - there certainly werent any "two planets appearing as one" type events anywhere near the dates in question.

The speaker at the event I was at had done just this, using Starry Night - but she had indeed found a number of instances of planets in conjunction.

It's no skin off my nose either way - whether or not there was exciting stuff going on in the heavens at around the right time (and the speaker I heard categorically stated that there was and backed this up using the kind of software you refer to), it's clear to me that it has no bearing on the truth or otherwise of the nativity story.

Mind you, the speaker I heard also made the reference to Luke - and now you've challenged it I've looked it up and you're absolutely right. I should have known that myself.

By the way - and moving on to a different part of the nativity story - Victor Stenger makes a good case for the "slaughter of the innocents" being a complete fabrication too. Apparently there were a couple of first century historians who wrote very critical accounts of Herod, dwelling on his murderous ways, and neither of them so much as mentions the alleged slaughter of the firstborn. Which would be odd, if it had really happened, wouldn't it?

Other Comments by Northern Bright

35. Comment #94605 by Quetzalcoatl on December 6, 2007 at 3:37 am

Apparently there were a couple of first century historians who wrote very critical accounts of Herod, dwelling on his murderous ways, and neither of them so much as mentions the alleged slaughter of the firstborn. Which would be odd, if it had really happened, wouldn't it?

I read a Christian's response to this. He basically said that obviously Herod committed so many murderous deeds that the slaughter of the innocents was just one of many evil acts, and that's why nobody thought it noteworthy.

Yeah, because the slaughter of children is just one of those things that slips through the cracks, isn't it? Not likely.

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36. Comment #94610 by Northern Bright on December 6, 2007 at 3:52 am

Yeah, because the slaughter of children is just one of those things that slips through the cracks, isn't it? Not likely.

No, not very likely at all! It's hard to imagine anything that would leave a populace more traumatised than a whole generation of their offspring being wiped out at the command of their ruler. It is unthinkable that neither of the two historians who wrote the most critical accounts of Herod would omit to mention it.

I've described it elsewhere as being the equivalent of 2 modern day historians writing extremely critical accounts of the US/UK invasion of Iraq, and omitting to mention that they didn't find any WMD when they got there.

Other Comments by Northern Bright

37. Comment #94619 by tman on December 6, 2007 at 4:14 am

Now about his article....


I question his motives on this one.... Too easy of a target, even jewish people would agree that Hanukah is not really that important and is only elevated because of Christmas and business.

Our objective to raise the awareness of reason, is not to abolish all rituals even if they are false. Intense intelligence and cold hard logic are not great social binders. Slapstick humor for example everyone can laugh at. That's the point of accessible rituals. This is major party pooper talk.

I respect these issues as an anthropologist. Though, they are false. I believe we can respect devotion even though it my be false. " You worked really hard at that!, but it doesn't work."

Other Comments by tman

38. Comment #94627 by phasmagigas on December 6, 2007 at 5:26 am

So, to put a star on top of a pine tree or to arrange various farm animals around a crib is to be as accurate and inventive as that Japanese department store that, as urban legend has it, did its best to emulate the Christmas spirit by displaying a red-and-white bearded Santa snugly nailed to a crucifix.

hilarious, actually in japan the cities are highly decorated with christmas decorations.

Other Comments by phasmagigas

39. Comment #94633 by phasmagigas on December 6, 2007 at 5:41 am

when you consider the expense of decorating a home with lights, giant inflatable snowmen (and in the US its funny how these are seen from the sub tropics to the near arctic), plastic trees, fat man in red costume, ginger braed house, real trees, plywood prop sleighs that grandad made in the 60's, angels, fairies, stars, candy canes, cribs, babies with halos, baubels, candles, oh and then another round of some poor bred for size last remaining dinosaur (even though the thaksgiving one still being eaten by the dog) one would think that more people might stand back and ask 'just why do i do this?

brits do at least have it right. We have traditional 'christmas crackers'. The emergent (post cracking of the cracker) black poirot like moustache and paper hat which invariably ends up on some uncles head is good enough reason for christmas as it gives us all a chance to act silly.

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40. Comment #94640 by scottishgeologist on December 6, 2007 at 6:26 am

Re the slaughter of the innocents. I think it was the historian Josephus who referred to these times in a lot of detail, yet makes no mention of the slaughter.

Of course, the apologist get round this by saying that Herod was so bad, that massacres happened all the time and this was just another one. No need for any special note.

Note also that it is "children under 2" who get killed. This is one of the pointers that shows that Christ was NOT a baby at the time. Just like how Mattehew refers to the Wise Men visiting a "house" And also that Jesus is described as a "young child" not a baby

It is clear that even if the biblical accounts in Matthew and Luke have even a shred of truth in them, that they relate to two totally different periods in the life of Jesus, possibly 2 years apart.

Yet children (and adult) get indoctrinated with this crap every year.

And all played out against a soundtrack of ghastly embarassing Christmas carols "we three "kings" for example and that awful "away in a manger" Note the line "no crying he makes" Jesus, supposedly fully Man and Fully God, yet being a baby doesnt cry. Yet he wept over Jerusalem.

You can go on and on and on picking holes in this junk till theres nothing left but holes holding the whole tissue of BS together

Man, the whole thing must be an incredibly powerful comfort blanket.

Think I'll now just head off for "carols by candlelight" followed by "mince pies and mulled wine" fellowship . Gosh, that'll be so fantastically spiffing wont it? Accompanied of course by Cliff Richards "Misteltoe and Wine"

Puked yet, you lot?

Sorry! :-))))))

SG

Other Comments by scottishgeologist

41. Comment #94642 by Quetzalcoatl on December 6, 2007 at 6:33 am

Note the line "no crying he makes" Jesus, supposedly fully Man and Fully God, yet being a baby doesnt cry.

Presumably his crap came out smelling of roses as well.

Other Comments by Quetzalcoatl

42. Comment #94643 by Northern Bright on December 6, 2007 at 6:34 am

And all played out against a soundtrack of ghastly embarassing Christmas carols "we three "kings" for example and that awful "away in a manger" Note the line "no crying he makes"

The line that really rouses my ire is

"Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as he."

Not ever so subtle, is it?

As an (accidental) antidote, when I first went to infants school the assumption was made that we new starters couldn't read. So we just had to pick up the words of the hymns in assembly by listening to the others singing them.

There's a children's hymn that starts, "Crown him, crown him, all the little children ....", which seemed to be a particular favourite at my school, since we ended up singing it quite often. As a result of the school's no-hymnbooks policy, though, I spent my first year at school singing at the top of my lungs, "Drown him, drown him, all the little children ...."

I was obviously destined to be an atheist from a tender age.

Other Comments by Northern Bright

43. Comment #94785 by Mr DArcy on December 6, 2007 at 2:23 pm

I'm all in favour of the good food and wine to celebrate the turn of the (northern hemisphere) sun towards longer days. I just hate these religious bastards hijacking our feast, making us feel guilty about it, and telling us that we don't understand the true significance of christmas, hannoukah or whatever else religious things there are around at this time of year.

Bah humbug to these religious Scrooges!

Other Comments by Mr DArcy

44. Comment #94788 by Bonzai on December 6, 2007 at 2:35 pm

Actually I don't mind religious themed holidays; I am secured enough with my atheism that I don't need to sneer at everything religiously related at every chance. :-) I like listening to hymns, even going for mid-night masses if it is not too frigging cold. I prefer those mildly religious sentiment to the shop til you drop message that characterizes high festivals these days. :-)

Other Comments by Bonzai

45. Comment #94979 by Kakashi_monkey on December 7, 2007 at 5:13 am

Ok, so the Jews HAVE attacked others. No, I haven't read a word of the Old (or new) Testament. But I still consider Judiasm the Diet Coke of bad religions. think of the Jihads and other unthinkable things done by Muslim extremists, and the total Christian intolerance. Jews definitely pale comapared to it all. Plus Jews were harassed many times by Christians, and I usually sypathize (at least a little) with innocent victims. (they were innocent then, at least.)

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46. Comment #95284 by Louise on December 7, 2007 at 9:16 pm

I think this is one of the nastiest, most vitriolic articles I've read in my life. Hitchens seems to me to be mentally unbalanced. What IS the matter with him? All that rot about the benign, civilising influence of the Greeks, for heaven's sake, Alexander the Great slaughtered enormous numbers of people during his conquests. In that wonderful book 'The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody', Will Cuppy writes: "He is known as Alexander the Great because he killed more people of more different kinds than any other man of his time."

The Greeks kept large numbers of slaves, the majority of the population were slaves. Only a very limited number of men enjoyed the famous Greek democracy, slaves had no rights and neither did women. The Greeks were extremely warlike(and their wars had nothing to do with religion, since they all worshipped the same gods), the various Greek nations spent most of their time in warfare against each other, knocking off only briefly to celebrate the Olympic Games. The games themselves were extremely violent, competitors were often killed, and more time was spent in - shock horror - religious celebrations, animals sacrifice etc, than actual games. 'The Naked Olympics' by Tony Perretot is a very good account of what the games were really like.

Aristotle held views that were reactionary in the extreme. He believed firmly that some people were born naturally superior to others, i.e. free men. Women and slaves were inferior, and designed by nature to be so. there was nothing remotely enlightened about his views. It is unlikely in the extreme that having Greek culture imposed upon them would have made any of the conquered nations more humane and liberal in their outlook than they were already.

And now Hitchens want to do away with Hannukah and Christmas and everything else and replace them with what, some dreary rationalist festival? Most people (including most Christians) are perfectly well aware of the pagan origins of some of the customs associated with their festivals, most people don't mind that. The Jehovah's Witnesses, however, see all such celebrations as Pagan, and don't celebrate Christmas, birthdays, or anything else (a Jehovah's Witness can't even make a toast at a wedding, because that's a Pagan custom too). Personally, I enjoy Christmas decorations, and I am looking forward to seeing my youngest son play an angel in the school Nativity play next week. I suspect Hitchens is not going to persuade many people to stop celebrating Christmas or Hannukah or anything else. Oliver Cromwell tried banning Christmas, but it broke out again after the Restoration. I suspect that nothing, short of a mass conversion of everyone to Jehovah's Witnesses, is going to stop it, and I daresay the same can be said of Hannukah.

Other Comments by Louise

47. Comment #95286 by Diacanu on December 7, 2007 at 9:31 pm

Loise-

..dreary rationalist...

Inborn unexamined prejudices much?

Other Comments by Diacanu

48. Comment #95404 by physicist on December 8, 2007 at 9:34 am

Our intellectual resources, the most valuable of which is time, are limited; hence, we should rather concentrate on fighting against the truly harmful and threatening aspects of religion, such as: (a) religiously motivated intolerance and violence; (b) the spreading of myths that are detrimental to progress of humanity; and (c) the enslavement of human minds through superstition and the discouragment of critical enquiry. In this sense, I find Hitchens' contribution a waste of such resources. Does Hitchens believe that people who observe Hanukkah are actively and conciously celebrating the victory of (religious) darkness over Hellenistic Enlightment? Were that to be the case, then I would see good reasons to have a confrontation with the whole circus but I don't think so. Apart from that -- Demokritus and Epikurus most certainly did NOT discover the atom. It was fashionable in classical Greece to have opposing philosophical schools about any issue and the continuous or discrete of matter was just one such topic of debate. Demokritus was a philosopher who invented the word "atom" and claimed that matter is made of atoms but he formulated no testable scientific hypothesis about their existence. Let us give credit to Boltzmann (who put forward a sound hypothesis about the existcen of atoms and died 5 years too early to see it confirmed) and to Rutehrford, who actually proved the atoms' existence experimentally.

Really, such superficial and ill-founded polemical comments as Hitchens' do not bring us forward.

Other Comments by physicist

49. Comment #97340 by Cartomancer on December 11, 2007 at 11:18 pm

Louise, Comment #52,

You clearly have some kind of irrational animus against Hellenic civilization. From the tone of your comments it seems that you disapprove of the violent and warlike nature of the Classical and Hellenistic Greek cultures, their misogyny and the conclusions of their science. I can only marvel at your utter inability to see these cultures within their historical context and the ease with which you condemn a civilization two and a half millennia past for not being in line with modern standards of taste and decency. The real comparison is not between the Classical Greeks and us, but between the Classical Greeks and contemporary peoples in other parts of the mediterranean world. As such there really is no contest - the achievements of the Semitic peoples in the fifth to first centuries BC pale into utter insignificance compared to the achievements of the Hellenic peoples and those who adopted their cultural forms.

Yes the Greeks were warlike. Everybody was warlike back then. You had to be in order to survive a world filled with all the other warlike peoples who wanted to enslave you and steal your land for themselves. This goes double for people living in tiny, isolated settlements like the classical Poleis rather than big territorial empires. Greek culture was in general deeply competitive and adversarial as you say, but this is precisely the tension which led to so much of their wonderful creativity. All societies need outlets and channels for the aggression and restless energy of their young males, the Greeks were simply very honest about that fact. They glorified young manhood. They wrote wonderful poems and deeply insightful plays about it, and made breathtaking statues to it. They glorified young womanhood too in many ways. Through the many "agones" or competitions in Greek life these urges were given purpose and direction, and the military benefitted tremendously, creating stable and unified societies - a rare commodity in such a dangerous world. We have other ways of doing this now, facilitated by our modern technologies, but they didn't. Though they tried. The history of Greek diplomacy is full of accords, agreements and "common peaces" proposed in an attempt to find non-violent solutions to inter-state conflict.

Yes Greek athletics were much more violent than modern athletics. That's because they took them much more seriously. It added a drama and tension the likes of which are just not seen in their pale modern equivalents. It was a different culture, a different time, but the competitors knew full well the risks involved and took them anyway - reckless perhaps, but still voluntary. And death in the games was considered glorious, like death in battle, because it was putting your life on the line for the pride of your people - an admirable ethic of self-sacrifice in my opinion, and vital for continued societal stability.

Yes the Greeks kept slaves. So did pretty much everybody else. It's what you did with prisoners of war. Slavery in classical times was a very different animal to the sort of negro slavery we are more familiar with in the early modern period. Although conditions for some slaves were appalling (such as the state slaves who worked Athens' silver mines at Laurium, and who actually lived in their mines), many led almost identical lives to their free counterparts, at least in Athens. One anti-democratic writer, probably from the 440s or 430s, berates the Athenians because it is impossible to distinguish slave from freeman on the streets of Athens - they don't impose a strict dress code to mark out those of lower status. Slaves were generally paid the same wages too, as epigraphic evidence from the acropolis works suggests. In fact certain slave careers were very lucrative, such as banking, and men such as the ex slave Pasion grew quite wealthy from them, before passing their businesses on to their own slaves rather than their free-born children.

Aristotle was reactionary?! What, pray tell, was he reacting against with his ideas on human differences? The egalitarian all-men-are-born-equal attitudes of his predecessors? What you mean is that his views on a small number of topics would be considered reactionary if he came up with them in today's intellectual climate, which is true, but that entirely ignores the fact that he came up with them twenty-three centuries ago! In his own day he was a radical and original thinker, and a highly humane ethicist. He worked on the principle that it is possible to discover morality by thinking about things rationally, rather than following custom and superstition. This was somewhat new, and certainly leagues ahead of what his crazy Jewish contemporaries were spouting. Aristotle was a scientist, he came up with theories based on the evidence he observed in the world around him. Show him some new evidence and he would change his mind. The conclusions he came to were based on observing the society he belonged to - a society in which women were seldom educated and slaves were a fact of life. Plato, by contrast, did consider women the intellectual equals of men, in theory. He even gave them equal political power in the utopian society of his Republic. If that's not a visionary work of enlightened rational thinking I don't know what is. Aristotle simply observed the real differences between the genders and tried to account for it. He was under no politically correct illusions that men and women had precisely the same capacities in ever particular and came up with models to explain gender differences. I repeat, if he were working from different evidence he would have come to different conclusions, and his magisterial works on logic demonstrate his method with great clarity. Compare the theistic blather of the jewish religion at this time, which worked to enshrine gender difference and inequality beneath the shroud of untouchable divine sanction. The two methods could not be more different - on the one hand seeing a phenomenon and trying to explain how it works and why, on the other seeing a phenomenon and simply saying "god did it, so it must be good, and we will unquestioningly keep doing it". Actually, Athens was perhaps more misogynistic than many Greek states. In Sparta, for instance, the women were much more independent and could own property and manage affairs to a far greater degree (and hence the need to distribute them among the men in Agis and Cleomenes' abortive communism experiment). Find me a people at this time who were not misogynistic by our standards.

If anyone taught us to explore and investigate the natural world around us it was Aristotle. He is one of the greatest geniuses that human society has ever produced. He is one of my intellectual heroes par excellence, and his Nicomachean Ethics, Eudamian Ethics and Politics are among the most humane, thoughtful and insigntful pieces I have read on the conduct of human affairs. You do the great man a staggering disservice with your tawdry hang-ups over the details of his tentative conclusions.

And you also miss the point entirely that Greek culture was not enforced on the populations of the Hellenistic world from above, but eagerly adopted by the people, and especially the aristocracies, from below. Alexandria under the pharaohs was a second-rate naval base and royal holiday resort, under the ptolemies it became one of the greatest cities and greatest centres of scholarship in the world. The Seleucids revolutionised the government and economy of Syria, making it greater and more prosperous than it ever was under the Achemenids. Even the dynasty of Lysimachus did a sterling job of repelling the increasingly frequent barbarian invasions into Thrace and maintaining civilized order there while they were in power during the third century BC. One great advantage of Greek culture was its pluralism (though admittedly Persian and Egyptian culture was pretty pluralistic too), and adaptability to local circumstances. The same cannot be said for the cantankerous maccabaean Semites, obsessed with their own nasty god and his unpleasant life-disrupting strictures. It boils down to stability again - good governance facilitates economic and cultural prosperity.

Where is the antique Jewish Sophocles or Phidias or Homer? Where is the antique Jewish Parthenon or Great Lighthouse or Colossus? Where is the antique Jewish Euclid or Plato or Archimedes or Heron? Where is their Antikythera mechanism, their theories of formal logic, their sophisticated siege engines and archimedean screws?

While the Greeks celebrated and revered homosexual love the Jews reviled it. This is pretty much all you need to know about the unquestionable moral superiority of the former over the latter during the centuries BC. (and bear in mind that it is the jewish people in the Middle East during these centuries that I am referring to as "the Jews" here, not their medieval or modern descendants, or at least only inasmuch as those descendants still practice the barbaric backwardness of their forebears).

Yes, it is fashionable nowadays to slate the Greeks and dispel the Renaissance and Enlightenment fascination with their culture. I'm all for that as those who have followed my more usual pro-medieval posts will attest. But once you look at the evidence and divest yourself of needless cultural hero-worship for the Greek and Latin Classics there is still so much there to admire that any sensible account of the period and the culture must rate it as remarkably productive and scintillating indeed.

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50. Comment #97348 by Flagellant on December 11, 2007 at 11:46 pm

Cartomancer, your appraisal and defence of Greek civilisation calls to mind Orson Welles's rather shorter famous personal contribution, involving the Renaissance and democracy, to Carol Reed's film The Third Man. However, I'm not sure if there's even a Jewish equivalent to 'the cuckoo clock'...



Religion - an activity for consenting adults in private.

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