51. Hitchens vs. Hannity on Religion and God

Comment #41020 by Thor on May 15, 2007 at 10:55 am

mnlandon,

"...the soft spoken Hitchens..." ?? You have never seen or heard him debate, have you? :-)

Ok, I admit that in this particular interview he didn't seem very energized - but if I look at the press junket he has done over the last couple of days where he alwys has to repeat the same arguments over and over again it's now wonder that he might be a little exhausted.

Basically he is one of the most ferocious and able debaters I have ever seen - with the downside that he sometimes stoops too low or becomes too personal in his attacks. Another "weakness" of his is that he often uses analogies and literarary anecdotes and references that fewer and fewer people get.

For example: one of the lines he often uses about he British monarchy is to make some negative comments about Prince Charles - "weak-chinned, slobbering dauphin" - and then proceed from there to saying: "well, that's what you get when you build a monarchy on the family values of Henry VIII!"
He said it again in the Bill Maher interview - it is linked here somewhere - and apparently nobody had any idea what he was talking about, which didn't really surprise me.

When he uses this line at public debates at universities or literary festivals there is always a rather large number of people who understand it - you have to know your audience.

Well, what can I say, we are only human, nobody is perfect...

52. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #40714 by Thor on May 14, 2007 at 7:01 pm

Dower,

I know - it is rather difficult not to notice, after all it is mentioned either by him or by the interviewer whenever he is on some TV or radio show :-)

53. Why Christopher Hitchens is not Great

Comment #40702 by Thor on May 14, 2007 at 6:12 pm

grolaw,

sorry, but as the big Hitchens fan that I am I just don't want to let this go without comment.

Hitchens can most definitely be a jerk - when he wants to. And on some occassions I immensely enjoy it when he is a jerk to someone who deserves it - other times not so much.

And why are you hung up on academic titles? I have no axe to grind with academia, but your conclusion that a Stanford B.A. in philosophy equals "encyclopedic knowledge" in some field is a little naive.
I am not trying to slam Harris, mind you - I think he is a very smart and eloquent guy and has written two very successful and important books.

But do you have any idea how many Stanford B.A.s of philosophy are running around in this world who don't know Zeus from Apollo? No?
Well, I don't either but I'd am sure there are SOME.

My point is this: whether you like him or agree with him is not the issue here - Hitchens is in my opinion one THE most well-read and erudite intellectuals alive today.
He has been working as a journalist and literary critc for over 30 years, he can quote you every important Enlightenment thinker, be it Locke, Mill, Paine, Jefferson (of the latter two he has written biographies) or many others, to the ancient Greeks from Socrates to Epicure, to literary figures like Oscar Wilde or W.H. Auden to his ultimate hero, George Orwell.
I will vouch for his encyclopedic knowledge of all things Marxism and Trotskyism - and as much as I disagree with a lot of it, criticism of religion was always part of that.

He is somewhat of an American First Amendment "fundamentalist" and values state non-intervention into private lives as one of the highest goods.
He has repeatedly stated that in some ways he has been writing this book - "God is not Great" - all his life and, having read many of his books and much of his writing in newspaper columns and opinion magazines I will say that this sounds quite plausible:
he nearly alwys finds some angle - no matter how obscure the topic he is writing about - to link it to one of his two "hobby horse" (though that expression doesn't really do justice to the passion he has for these issues) of personal liberty and religious superstition - which are, as most people here are hopefully aware of, in themselves often inextricably linked.

So, disagree with him all you like - I would probably also have something to say in that case - but what I really find hard to take is someone saying that Hichtens doesn't KNOW what he is talking about because he doesn't have an academic degree - which would be laughable enough to begin with but is not even true.
He actually has Bachelor's from the famous Balliol college at Oxford, an institution that has an impressive list of alumni - among them some guy called Richard Dawkins...

So, are you satisfied with his "credentials" now? :-)

54. Richard Dawkins' lecture at the State House Convention Center

Comment #40545 by Thor on May 14, 2007 at 12:57 pm

Logicel,

sorry, I don't quite follow you. Frankly, I think the sound quality is abysmal. I had to tweak the equalizer on my media player (Winamp) for a while to understand him at all.

The accoustics of a big hall are very bad for recording speech - too much echo in the low frequency range. Also, there is a slight but still perceptible blanket of white noise present throughout the whole recording.

55. Among the Disbelievers

Comment #40513 by Thor on May 14, 2007 at 11:36 am

Oh My God - if you will forgive the expression.

The penultimate paragraph is such a stellar example of left-wing propaganda for collectivist thinking, it's frightening. Not that I would expect anything less from the Nation!

Just read this nonsense:
"Hence, 'my life is meaningful' is itself meaningful only to the degree that other people view it as such and see their own lives the same way. Hence, meaning can be achieved only via a collective act of self-creation in which humanity creates new conditions for itself so that humanity as a whole can flourish."

My life is meaninful only if other people view it as such!? What the hell!?

This moronic concept of "I am nothing without a greater whole" is just as dangerous as most of the theist nonsense we often see around here - and notice the smiliarities between this neo-marxist propaganda ("creating new conditions [...] humanity can flourish" - where have we heard that before? )and religious dogma that prescribes inclusion in a greater community of believers.

56. Atheism in America

Comment #40438 by Thor on May 14, 2007 at 9:44 am

I was wondering whether there was anything one can do to help or at least voice support for the Smalkowskis?

When I saw CJ's post above with the link to the American Atheist newsflash page (http://www.atheists.org/flash.line/smalko1.htm - btw, how do you manage to do embedded links in the comments here?) I was glad to hear that at least their judicial troubles seem to be over for now - so that's good news.
Also it's good to know that they have the full support of American Atheists behind them.
Nevertheless, it must be a terrible situation for them to be living in a town that is apparently dominated by religious intolerance, parochialism and bigotry.

Maybe those of you with a Myspace-account could go to Nicole's myspace page (at http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=67090362 - thanks again to CJ) and voice your support?
I'd imagine that every little bit helps.

(For the record: I am not on myspace and have no intention of opening an account there - I can't stand that site, but that's my problem. I just hope this doesn't invalidate my appeal or make others dismiss it as the "typical" atheist lack of moral convictions :-)

57. Dawkins transcendent

Comment #39919 by Thor on May 12, 2007 at 9:34 am

Jerome,

considering the rush of new articles on Dawkins or Atheism in general - and we should all be happy about the publicity - it is understandable that you overlooked it, but this has been up since May 9 here:
http://richarddawkins.net/article,1018,n,n

58. The Debate: Can We Live by Reason Alone?

Comment #39870 by Thor on May 12, 2007 at 6:40 am

Alright, I just can't resist adding my two cents:

no matter if you liked the interviewer or not, the interview as such was just great. The good thing about it was that because of the insistence the interviewer showed on some qestions - which many above interpreted as his own bias shining through or him not fully grasping the issues, which may be true or not but is irrelevant to the outcome - anyway, because of this insistence Dawkins was forced to elaborate on some issues, like morality, much more than he usually does.

Consequently, the whole interiew was a pleasant variation on the usual stock questions and answers - because regardless of Dawkins' eloquence, some arguments you can only hear so many times.
Some others above have already noted that. I think for this reason the interview was indeed quite worthwhile.

59. Christopher Hitchens on Religion

Comment #39738 by Thor on May 11, 2007 at 7:27 pm

Connor,

If I remember correctly Hitchens wanted the REVEREND (!!) Al Sharpton to take a stand for his religion rather than having him retreat to the Deist position of saying:
"Hitchens talks about all the evil 'religion' does but has no arguments against my god"

While that is a perfectly reasonable position to take - albeit also one that Hitchens adressed, if only briefly - it is not necessarily what I would expect from a Christian preacher or is it!?

60. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #39035 by Thor on May 9, 2007 at 7:56 pm

IQHQ,

while it may be a little childish I must admit to a certain satisfaction at so utterly frustrating and demoralizing filthyatheist into submission :)
Thanks for the cooperation. It is always nice to meet some kindred spirits.

"Proto-fascist"... man, this guy is really SO far gone. Anyway, also thank you for the compliments.
I usually don't consider myself all that combative but while I have no problem at all when interacting with reasonable people on the left side of the political spectrum - I can sometimes even go along with some of their ideas - seeing such extreme nutcases who don't see the destructiveness of their discredited, totalitarian - dare I say proto-fascist :) - ideology pushes all my buttons and I can't resist engaging in some head-to-head with them.

As for the other readers here: I apologize for this rather off-topic skirmish.
I am well aware that among us Atheists there are many extremely diverging political opinions and usually I don't mind that but when I meet someone who is so diametrically opposed to everything I believe in - a free and open society (though he will certainly dispute that) - well, I just couldn't resist.

61. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #38894 by Thor on May 9, 2007 at 12:10 pm

IQHQ,

Thanks for your book recommendations. I saw Susan Neiman's appearance at the "Beyond Belief" conference and was quite impressed with her.

As for Revel on "Anti-Americanism", I have heard it mentioned before, but that's about it.

Anywa, I will add these two books to my never-ending list of books-I-migh-read-some-day :)

62. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #38886 by Thor on May 9, 2007 at 11:58 am

Filthyatheist,

glad you showed up again - in a way.

We are obviously in absolute agreement that I consider your worldview - as you no doubt do with mine - to be utterly delusional, dangerous, I would even go so far a calling it a cancer on the body of Western civilization.

Most likely you don't have a problem with the latter characterisation since you don't consider Western civilization, this culture we live in that has at its roots the ideas of the Ancient Greeks, admittedly a large portion of Judeo-Christian values (which I don't value as highly as the rest of this list), the Enlightenment, the ideas of Classical Liberalism, the economic model of Capitalism and the political ideal of consitutional, republican, democratic and liberal nation states - all of that to you is probably just an unrealistic, idealized view of the world, nothing but a propaganda ploy by evil neo-con or neo-liberal (pick your preference :) white males to subjugate and exploit the poor in this imperialist, sexist, racist, islamophobe, etc... world order we live in.

Did I get your view of the world about right?
I would be disappointed if I didn't - after all, I wouldn't want to mischaracterize such a "profound thinker" like you who doesn't feel embarassed at approvingly mentioning Galloway and who even speaks favorably of Chavez.

One more clarification of your cheap swipe above: I don't take my cues from the neo-cons; they were, as I have already mentioned in my original post, profoundly wrong on many things so I don't quite see what your are getting at with this.
Hitchens is also defnititely not a neo-con. He often has mentioned that he sees himself in somewhat of a "temporal alliance with them". Personally, although I doubt if he would like this characterization, I would now describe him as a left-libertarian.

I, on the other hand consider myself - in the American political spectrum where "libertarian" now means what "liberal" used to mean - a moderate libertarian or a classical liberal, somewhat right of center.
Thus I have ideals that clearly clash with yours, and, like you, I have people and philosphies that I prefer over others.
And, again, like you, I am firmly convinced that my model of political reality is vastly superior to yours in desribing and explaining the world.

Which means that this dicussion ends where it usually ends when I talk to someone on the far left: we agree to disagree and despise each others wordlviews.

I just have the added satisfaction of seeing the good that the principles I adhere to bring to the world - and, no, I am NOT talking about the Iraq war - while you live in a self-made hellhole of never-ending unsucessful struggle against an imaginary foe.
Have a good life :)

63. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #38812 by Thor on May 9, 2007 at 8:27 am

Here we go again, another lefty parroting Howard Zinn or some other neo-marxist, "anti-imperialist" view of history.

Of course many people were killed in the history of the US, but in that it is no different from any other country. Nearly every major country existing today has various instances of what we today would call genozide in its past.
Back then that was the norm! Warfare was synonimous with killing, pillaging, raping etc...
The beginning of the US fell into the last centuries of these barbaric times.

As beautiful as the founding principles of the US, it is naive to detach them from the reality of the time they existed in. The idea of "human rights" was just starting to take hold.

This whole idea of blaming a country - and funnily enough, it is usually the US that is chosen, not Russia, or China or Germany, or Britain, or France, or Turkey... - for all it's past actions is ridiculous.
It's like going to Italy today and saying: "Remember the Punic Wars? That really wasn't a nice thing to do. How about some reparation payments to North Africa?"

Alright, so the issues at hand here concerns the last 2 centuries and not something that happened 2 millenia ago. But what those anti-American nit-wits here refuse to recognize is that the amount of warfare and death and violence in the world has been int steady decline over the last 2 centuries, and that happened largely due to the ideals that the US were founded upon and, admittedly to a lesser degree, due to the actions the US took in the world.
(Great book ont this topic: Indur Goklany's "The Improving State of the World")

One last thing: I am not even an American, but I get so angry at hearing these same tired old propaganda slogans again, fueled by a naive world -view that sees all wars as evil - especially if the US is somehow involved - and doesn't realize the fatal consequences of this pacifist, we-are-all-brothers, can't-we-just-get-along philosophy that is often enough influenced by some apparently uneradicable, zombie-like remnants of various Marxist or socialist ideas. Funnily enough, the pacifism is always restricted to those who are deemed the "oppressors". The "oppressed", in today's world usually such nice people as various Jihadist in the Middle East or neo-Marxist authoritarian thugs like Chavez in Venezuala are, of course, entitled to any kind of cruelty and violence they like.

I really makes me sad that people still listen to such nonsense.

64. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #38639 by Thor on May 8, 2007 at 9:38 pm

First of all, I am a big Hitchens fan. I don't agree with him on some issues, but I simply love his writing and his speeches.

Criticism of him for his Iraq stance is, of course, understandable but I'd rather have it come from people who have a more realistic view of reality than the usual mindless drivel of "the evil, racist neo-cons want to oppress the people in Iraq, steal their oil and kill their children blah blah blah...."

Let's be clear: I believe that the neo-cons got some things right but in the big picture their naive optimism about the Middle East and the inability of the American troops to prevent Zarqawi from igniting the sectarian violence that now ravages large parts of Iraq has paved the way to the bloodshed and carnage we see now.
They simply didn't understand the realities of the country they wanted to transform into a free and democratic society. As the saying goes: "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

Hitchens has often criticized the incompetent manner in which the war has been conducted but he has, admittedly, been less critical of the administration than some would have liked. Why?
Because he is some war-mongerer who likes nothing better than to bomb poor countries?

Anyone who believes that caricature knows nothing about Hitchens and his past as a writer and journalist. He simply despises large parts of the left and the Democrats even more than he disagrees with the Republicans.
He is disappointed with the Republicans that they made such mess of the war, but he is disgusted with the Democrats for being against the war or blaming the violence there on America instead of THE JIHADISTS WHO ACTUALLY DO THE KILLING!!

This is a difficult discussion and to be honest I am not quite sure where I stand on this right now. The first priority should be now to at the very least guarantee the coninuity of a free Kurdistan. As for the rest of Iray, well... I don't pretend to have an answer, but to those of you who believe that when the American troops leave the people there will have peace I can only say:
the carnage will get even worse after they are gone because nothing and nobody will restrain the religous death-squads then.

65. Christopher Hitchens and Al Sharpton: A Debate God Is Not Great

Comment #38563 by Thor on May 8, 2007 at 3:58 pm

I don't know if anyone else had this issue but I had to rename the file that is downloaded under the "Listen to the program" from "070507.ra" to "070507.ram" for it to work.

Maybe that's just a small typo in the link.

66. Interview with Christopher Hitchens

Comment #38492 by Thor on May 8, 2007 at 10:37 am

If you don't mind me saying so, guys, I find what YOU are saying odd :)

You can say you disagree with Hitchens or that you find his stance to be morally indefensible or what have you... but what the hell is it supposed to mean that you find it "odd" ?

Read the interview: he clearly states in the interview "I'm a single-issue voter".

While I don't agree with everything he says at the very least his position is clear. He obviously has different priorities than you do, i.e. he finds Jihadism at the moment to be the biggest threat. You are certainly free to argue against this - and there is, indeed, a fair point to be made that the disastrous Iraq war hasn't exactly set back the global appeal of Jihadism - but again, what's up with calling it "odd"?

67. The God Delusion

Comment #36719 by Thor on May 2, 2007 at 4:53 am

MrEmpirical,

I agree 100% - but that is what I meant to imply by posting the quote from the interview.

In it Shermer says "once you go down the path that there are objective truths and realities, particularly in the moral realm dealing with values, then it doesn't take long for some people to go from there to judging other people fairly harshly."

Ethics and morals are essentially ALL human value judgements and therefore SUBJECTIVE. While I do have certain sympathies for the concepts of "rational egoism" and capitalism that objectivists espouse I do so on utilitarian grounds, that is because I believe that, empirically speaking, these concepts have been and are the most successful at creating wealth, progress and general human happiness - however, I do not postulate any of this as an absolute, "objective" truth.

Because I acknowledge that many here will probably still strongly disagree even with this statement I should probably add that nothing is without disadvantages, and that there is always room for compromise and more socially-minded policies, too. I could flesh it out more but I don't feel like going into a point by point discussion of certain economic and socio-political ideas here.

68. The God Delusion

Comment #36692 by Thor on May 2, 2007 at 3:11 am

Just wanted to add something about Michael Shermer, because his "Why People Believe Weird Things" has been mentioned here a couple of times.

It is indeed true that in WPBWT he criticizes some objectivist organisations as cult-like. On the other hand, however, he has great respect for Ayn Rand her ideas, even if he doesn't agree with all of them.

Here is an interview with Shermer, who identifies as a libertarian, in "The New Individualist" - an Objectivist magazine published by the same Atlas Society that published the review we are discussing here - in which he says he actually has a portrait Ayn Rand on his wall:
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/ct-1852-M_Shermer.aspx

Let me quote from the interview:
-----------------------
TNI: Speaking of self-interest brings us to the philosophy of Ayn Rand. I know that you have said that you're an admirer of Rand, that among the pictures you have on your wall—Isaac Asimov and Darwin and others—you actually have Ayn Rand. But you've also been critical of the Objectivist movement or, I should say, certain Objectivists. Could you say a few words about what positive insights you get out of Rand?

Shermer: In fact, my daughter and I just listened to the entire audio reading of Atlas Shrugged, which you can download from Audible.com.

TNI: Yeah, we sell the MP3 of that now.

Shermer: I love the idea of personal responsibility and rugged individualism and all that. And the philosophy itself, I think, is perfectly sound. It's the best thing going out there. Is it perfect? Well, I'm not a philosopher, but, for example, once you go down the path that there are objective truths and realities, particularly in the moral realm dealing with values, then it doesn't take long for some people to go from there to judging other people fairly harshly.
----------------------

Well, that about sums it up and is pretty close to my position re Objectivism, too.

69. The God Delusion

Comment #36434 by Thor on May 1, 2007 at 5:25 am

Thanks, Logicel. Compliments are, of course, always welcome :).


For those of you who have never heard of Ayn Rand or Objectivism, here a short overview of the philosophy in Rand's own words:

1. Metaphysics: Objective Reality
2. Epistemology: Reason
3. Ethics: Self-interest
4. Politics: Capitalism

If you want this translated into simple language, it would read:

1. 'Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed' or 'Wishing won't make it so.'
2. 'You can't eat your cake & have it too.'
3. 'Man is an end in himself.
4. 'Give me liberty or give me death.'

(I picked this from solopassion.com. Go to "New to Objectivism?" in the right upper-hand corner if you are interested)


I have no problem whatsoever with 1 and 2; 3 is also okay with me - the problems arise with the definition of what constitutes "rational self-interest".
As for number 4, I am also very fond of capitalism, but I for slightly different reasons than "pure" Objectivists.
I am more of a pragmatist or utilitarian in that respect.

Sorry for the philosophical excursion, but it's a topic I am very interested in.

70. The God Delusion

Comment #36426 by Thor on May 1, 2007 at 5:10 am

I want to second the comment by scot regarding the criticism of Rand here:

I have in other places here in the forum already condemned the tendency to dismiss comments or arguments because they come from certain corner. Yes, different people have differen agendas, but it just so happens that the Objectivists as a whole are staunch and absolute atheists. That doesn't mean we have to agree with all their positions, just that a positive review of TGD shouldn't surprise us.

Personally, I have, during the last year, read some of Rand's books and in general read up on her thoughts and her philosophy while at the same time reading Harris, Dawkins, Dennett and some older proponents of atheism (e.g. B. Russell "Why I am not a Christian").
While I personally think her view of human nature is as naive and flawed as for example that of Marx, just in different way, she has given me lots of ideas and things to think about and I value her writings for that.
The same goes for Marx, btw - and I am someone who identifies as a (moderate) libertarian.

I just can't stand the intellectual sectarianism that is present in all these debates where arguments and comments are dismissed because of their source!!!
Yes, there are extreme cases like Nazis and religious fundamentalists etc... where we usually don't listen anymore.

But on the other hand I have, by listening to some religous talk radio, been forced to think about issues that I hadn't consciously considered before - and it simply bothered me that I did not have any valid and coherent answers to some of their views. This, in turn, motivated me to educate myself on these issues.
So listening to other's positions, no matter who these "others" are, can always be an enriching experience if it only makes you think for yourself.


BTW: why is everyong going on about the Objectivist slant of this article being "hidden"?
The article comes from the Atlas Society, and someone above already pointed out what their purpose is - if anyone doesn't know it they can look it up. There is nothing sinister or secretive about it - just the opposite, actually, since Objectivists are notoriously talkative when it comes to their worldview.

71. Fighting Words: A wartime lexicon

Comment #35059 by Thor on April 26, 2007 at 5:24 am

Longtime Hitchens fan that I am I find myself immensely grateful to Josh for posting this piece here.

Hitchens is, by his very nature, controversial and many here might have been for various reasions averse to buying his book. The best antidote to such ideological squeamishness really is to showcase his powerful and amazing writing skills - this time beautifully employed in arguing against religion.

I have most of his books and I often enjoy reading his articles; however, that does not mean that there aren't many times points of disagreement. But that is exactly what Hitchens - or, as friends and enemies alike often like to call him, "Hitch" - refers to above:
disagreements on various issues, even if they are very deep and prinicpled disagreements, should never preclude rational and well-meaning people from working together on entirely different issues where we do agree.

Anyway, I have already ordered his book, but since I don't live in the "anglosphere" I will have to wait longer than some of you. So to those among you closer to the source, so to speak, I can only say:
Go and buy this book. I promise you will not regret it - but, actually, you don't have to believe me, someone who is very favorably biased towards Hitchens.
Just look at this excerpt above: isn't this just a terrific and powerful piece of writing?
Trust me, this man KNOWS how to write and polemize - even on the danger of sounding overly reverential: I would be grateful if I had only half of his skill.

72. Here Comes the Fourth Musketeer.

Comment #34525 by Thor on April 24, 2007 at 10:56 am

Thank you, Prometheus.

There really is no better way of putting it than you did - I agree 100%.

73. Here Comes the Fourth Musketeer.

Comment #34163 by Thor on April 23, 2007 at 12:09 pm

krogercomplete,

as you might guess my knowledge about what exactly is "mainstream" among various socialist and/or communist sects and factions is also rather limited but fortunately they can't agree on many things themselves.
But despite their apparent weakness one should not underestimate the degree to which socialist ideas, sometimes in diluted form, have entered into the collective conscience of much of Western society, let alone the Third World.

Of course, a lot depends on where you are coming from: some marxists view economic Keynesianism as a purely capitalistic ploy to "bribe" the underclass, to keep them inert and avoid social unrest. I, on the other hand, view Keynesianism - increased goverment spending in government investments and public services to raise consumption and stimulate the economy - as a deeply flawed economic policy that gave us enormous national debts and is strongly influenced by socialist thought, namely the idea that the state can, let alone should, control economic cycles.

I am mainly interested in the basic premises from which they operate and in understanding their worldview and that only because I consider their ideas to be intensly inimical to a free society.

But for insight into neo-marxist thinking on Venezuela and Latin America go to http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/schiefer070206.html
There you will find an interview with a German intellectual who is supposedly a close advisor to Hugo Chavez - browse the magazine for more "treasures" like this.

In the interview itself you will find, among other things, this beautiful quote:
"In my view, one can only do today in Venezuela what Lenin did in the New Economic Policy."

Now, if you want to read something more akin to my side of the political spectrum, read this short but very descripitive blog post which in my opinion neatly illustrates why income inequality is not as inherently "evil" as some make it out to be:
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2007/04/harry_potter_an.html

I rest my case.

74. Here Comes the Fourth Musketeer.

Comment #34090 by Thor on April 23, 2007 at 7:30 am

@ comment #33951 by Russell Blackford:
Don't worry, I am not a Rand-worshipper. While I do think atheists should read some of her work she wast just as flawed in her view of human nature as Marx was - only in the opposite extreme.
However, radical individualism engenders infinitely less violence or coercion than radical collectivism - "freedom from coercion" is simply much less ambiguous than "freedom/right to" something which can often result in the imposition of rules upon others - just to put the general validity of these opposing ideas in perspective (yes, I know, I am biased :)
----------------


Unfortunately I will have to go against my own admonishment from above, that is not to engage in "infighting", but Allan Greene hits really all my buttons in his posts.
I will write one admittely rather lengthy answer about what most enrages me in these posts but then I will quit this discussion, because I have no intention to engage in endless rebuttals of 1000-word essays in typical rambling marxist fashion where any number of unrelated issues and historical excursion into marxist doctrine and history are brought into the discussion to pound out the usual talking points about how, in the big picture, every problem is supposedly the fault of capitalism and Western imperialism.

But for now....cannot resist... must wade into... marxist semantic sewer.... ohhh, the stench..... :)

Allan Greene posts are stellar examples for most everything I dislike about the (extreme) left, both in style and in content.
He calls himself a left-wing socialist. Well, there are a number of different labels one could think of but I should respect his choice. In his posts you find all the typical intra-leftist quabling about labels and factions: Noam Chomsky in his eyes is not a "real" leftist but a liberal - a rather routine accusation by doctrinaire communists of anyone who deviates from the "party line", like Chomsky who considers himself an anarcho-syndicalists (google it :).
Greene's constant disparaging remarks about "fake" and "unprincipled" Trotskyists are also straight from the textbook of "How to be a good communist".
Just to be clear: I have no sympathies for Chomsky OR Trotsky.

Greene's constant carping about the term Islamofascism and his assertion that the very usage of this term implies wanting to kill all Muslims is also typical for the black-and-white simplications of the radical left. He generously explains to us that fascism has historically always arisen in "bourgeois capitalist country" and that the term "Islamo-fasciscm" somehow has not been okayed by "social science" - forgetting to mention that "Fascism" is something that any number of books have been written about without bringing consent on the definition of what fascism means.

Interesting historical detail: Stalin very early on told his propaganda machine to exchange the word "national-socialism" for "fascism" in order to avoid any possible linkage with the "true" socialism - I wonder why he was afraid people might draw parallels :)
To be clear: Greene has strongly condemned Stalin in his posts - I only wanted to make a general point about the in my eyes obvious and inevitable similarities between authoritarian, or, if you will, "fascist" systems - whether they classify people by social class, race or religion is a moot point to me.

Greene himself calls Nazism and Fascism irrationalist movements but also concurs with the following:
"I favor continuing to pedagogically seek to eviscerate irrationalism."
Would he have said the same in 1940?

Greene asserts:
"Islamofascist, implies a certain view of millions of human beings which is, frankly, genocidal"
Why is the realistic assumtion that there are millions of people on this planet (not only Muslisms, of course) who want to do everything in their power to destroy the free, liberal and prosperous societies of the West, large parts of Asia and increasingly in South America, genocidal?

I simply acknowledge that there are huge ideolgical differences in this world - some of which can be resolved peacefully, others mighbt be dealt with by some sort of containment and wome will be fought out by wars - that's just a reality . To clarify my position: I do not think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as genocide - just to give you enough ammuntion for your moral outrage.
Some wars resolve problems and some wars perpetuate them - again, no easy black and white.
Radical leftists usually only advocate pacifism on one side :)

Greene, like many leftists, asserts that most of the problems in what he calls the countries with "belated capitalist development" have their roots in the West and that people their rightfully hate us for it.
Funny how for example the Muslim world hardly ever publicly protests against injustice that has been done to them by other authoritarian systems, be it the Soviet Union in the past in Afghanistan or today Russia in Chechnia or China in its western provinces...
No, it's always about the crusades(!!!) or 19th century Imprialism etc...

Inquiring minds might even come to the conclusion that - while admitting some legitimate grievances against and some internal problems in the West - the incessant complaints about imperialism and oppression from countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia (yes, I know, the US backs them - does that make the US an evil imperialist power? - only if you think the world is black-and-white) etc... who themselves are among the most oppressive and illiberal regimes on this planet and have no concept of human rights that anyone reading this would willingly subscribe to, might be "borrowed" from the textbooks of the philosophies of self-immolation that the West itself has brought forth:
fascist authoritarianism and anti-semitism (Greene calls Israel a "Zionist, Jewish, theocratic nation-state" - the most liberal country in the region!!!) coupled with the rhetorical drivel of socialism and, unfortunately, strenthened and reinforced beyond belief by an age-old sexist, racist, imperialist (something the left would normally oppose) expansionist warrior creed that regulates every aspect of society: Islam.

Only in the West, where one can criticize everything and everyone - one of the most "sacred" principles of a free society - could this sort of propaganda bear fruit, falling on fertile ground where the socialist delusion of universal Western guilt and self-hatred have already festered.



ATTTENTION - Caveat Lector:
I will now do the very thing that above I accused Greene of - lengthy historical or maybe philosophical excursions... sorry about that and I would certainly understand if these seemingly abstract philosophical differences do not interest most of you but as atheists I hope you do understand the importance of thinking hard about what you really value in life.

I just thought that while I am at it I should take the time to provoke Greene and maybe some others in the forum here with some political statements and labeling of my own, just to show what a "big tent" atheism can be - if we let it:
As I said, I consider myself a moderate libertarian or maybe a classical liberal. I admire and derive my values above all from the freethinkers of the Enlightenment, especially Voltaire, Locke, Hume, Jefferson and Paine (yes, I know, they were not all atheists - but consider the time they lived in). I deeply saddens me that the in my eyes wrong strain of the Enlightenment, the one started with Rousseau's "social contract" which brought us the bloody French Revolution and in its "finalized" version by Marx brought us the bloody mess of communism, has gained so much influence in Europe and subsequently all over the world.

Among the 20th century thinkers I value most highly are Popper and Hayek, while I have nothing but contempt for the post-modernists and neo-marxists of various stripes like Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Horkheimer, Adorno, Habermas and Marcuse.
(If you intend to read them: by all means, go ahead - all it will give you is a headache and a desire to kill yourself :)

It just so happens that I believe capitalism to be one of the most beneficial and progressive forces in all of human history - somehing Marx actually agreed with, albeit only insofar as capitalism destroyed the structures of feudalism.
Yes, as the great economist Schumpeter said, there is a big element of creative destruction in capitalism - but, contrary to the contentions of the left this involves infintely less destruction of lives and value than the desolation engendered by the utopian goal of "social equality" of the radical left, which INEVITABLY leads to in unfree, authoritarian societies.

The Muslim theocrats and any number of other authoritarians around the world (from Stalinist North Korea to the re-emerging Latin American socialism of Hugo Chavez to African clepocrats like Mugabe) know why they always pick the West as the target for their demagogic rants:
the moral values and economic models of the West (as diverse as they may be) are indeed deeply destructive - that much is true. But they destroy traditionalism, religious superstition, theocracy and any other subset of primitivism and authoritarian rule.

Social change is neiher always good nor always bad, it is neither always peaceful nor always violent - there are too many factor in play to go into this here.

But back to the zombie-ideologie of today that just won't die:
The socialist temptation builds on an unfortunate intrinsic feature of human psychology - there haven been some studies on this published recently - to often disregard the absolute improvement of one's own quality of life when compared to someone else's bigger gains in relative terms.
Since this is a fact of life some redistributive systems will always be necessary to avoid social unrest - I am a pragmatist, after all.

Still, I very much prefer the value-"trinity" of "life,liberty and the pursuit of happiness" (originally Locke's "life, liberty and property") to "liberté, egalité, fratrenité" - and I am not even an American or born anywhere in the "Anglosphere".


To conclude: since Greene has, not surprisingly, approvingly cited writers I strongly disagree with, like Gore Vidal, Tariq Ali etc... and criticized those I admire, like Hitchens or Irshad Manji (I am surprised he didn't mention Ayan Hirsi Ali) I want to finish by recommending a book:

"The Improving State of the World" by Indur Goklany

It exorciates many of today's doomsday-scenarios by showing the constant and accellerating improvement in any imaginable indicator of human well-being, individual freedom and economic progress (globally, not only in the West) and the decrease in abolute numbers of violent conflicts and war deaths - something that anyone who only follows the evening news on TV will find hard to believe, but that doesn't make it any less true.

However, the fact that Goklany hails from the Cato Institute, THE libertarian think tank, will probably hurt his credibility with the the radical left... guess you can't have everything.

75. Here Comes the Fourth Musketeer.

Comment #33921 by Thor on April 22, 2007 at 5:25 pm

I simply cannot understand the rambling essays here maligning Hitchens where some try to paint a caricature of him as somehing akin to a nazi "quisling" - I wanted to even the balance a little and voice my support and my great admiration for Christopher Hitchens, one of my intellectal heroes.

The world is not as black and white as some people imagine it to be: atheists have a variety of political convictions, from conservative to libertarian to liberal to leftist.

I am very much against using these - real and important - differences to paint someone as "unworthy" of being considered a "friend of the cause" or some such nonsense...

Personally, I consider myself somewhat of a moderate libertarian and I am often frustrated to see how large the leftist camp among atheists is but I manage and try to convince myself that you have to work together on some issues with people you disagree with on other issues - isn't that at least a concept most of us can agree on?

It is ridiculous to make issues like "did you support the war in Afghanistan?" into a limus test for being a "good" atheist. I for one think it was not only justified but necessary. Some of you will disagree with me - fine. Maybe we will agree in our dislike of Bush. And there are many more issues to agree or disagree upon.

I want to turn back to Hitchens for a moment: his support for the Iraq war is based largely on his close relations with the Kurds, especially Kurdish exiles like Kanan Makiya. That they - and, consequently, Hitchens - were wrong about a lot is obvious. But it is ridiculous to claim that Hitchens is sucking up to religious fundamentalists or this administration in any way.
He has been a plaintiff in the ACLU's case against the government for the illegal wiretaps, he has on numerous occasions condemned and ridiculed the inept management of the war and has often commented VERY unfavorably on Bush and Cheney.

Hitchens also regularly appears on the radio show of theo/neocon right wing hack Hugh Hewitt, which many leftists see as even more evidence of his supposed transformation in to a "righ-winger". I my eyes this claim is utterly without merit:
When they talk about Iraq they often agree, while on many other issues like religion and some dark points in US history they disagree, often even strongly, but stay civil in their conversations.
What's the big deal here?
Do we really want to get to a point where we single out people for "fraternizing with the enemy"?

Hitchens has stated quite clearly on a number of occasions that he considers the fight agains fundmentalist Islam or Islamofascism the greatest and most important cause of our times. He miscalculated insofar as he probably underestimated how badly this administration handled thins in Iraq. As tragic as this is - so did many others.
Still, he sees Islamic fundamentalism as the by orders of magnitude greater threat at the moment when compared to the "Christianists" (copyright Andrew Sullivan) in the US - and I happen to agree with him. Gay marriag, abortion rights etc... are important topics and I hold extremely liberal views on most of this "hot-button issues" of the US - but the utter disregard for the value of human life, the principle of personal liberty and the equality of men and women that is found not only fundamentalist Islam put large parts of mainstream Islam coupled with rabid anti-semitism and very often anti-black Arab supremacism... I know where my priorities lie.


The left in general has a tendency to strongly disagree on this point. It will be an important and necessary discussion among atheists where we want our focus to be. Yes, we are all against supernaturalism and religious superstition, but it should be obvious that among the big religions there are huge differences in the degree to which they adhere to illiberal and authoritarian personal gods.
Personally, I see Islam as the undisputed leader in this category - but with many fundamentalist Christian movements in hot pursuit, I'll give you that.

Of course, in the end politics will inevitably find its way into every discussion, but let us at least try to keep the infighting down to a minimum, agreed?

76. As Religious Strife Grows, Europe's Atheists Seize Pulpit

Comment #31832 by Thor on April 14, 2007 at 1:56 pm

@denoir(comment #31802):

The two charts that you provide can be misleading: one is in linear and the other in logarithmic scale.

I don't mean to imply that this was intended and I also don't want to insult the intelligence of the readers here - I am sure most of you can read charts.
But the fact of the matter remains that, at least if I try to imagine the UK chart in linear scale, it would maybe not differ as drastically from the US income distribution as some here imply.

However, I admit that's pure speculation on my part, I really don't know.

77. Debate between Sam Harris and Reza Aslan

Comment #22104 by Thor on February 12, 2007 at 11:10 pm

I have now seen, heard and read so many statements by Reza Aslan that are factually incorrect or missing large parts of the truth that I really don't know what to believe any more.

I can not imagine that someone like him would be an apologist for radical Islam, someone who tries to downplay every problem presented to him - but maybe I am just too gullible.

Because the only other explanation would be that he is an utter fool and a naive idiot, and contrary to his accusations to Sam Harris that Harris' arguments "lack sophistication" it is him who is blinded by what he can't see OR does not want to see.

I have stopped quite a while ago to believe in the truth of anything whatsoever said by this unserious pretty-boy pop-academic who makes a living by telling everyone "It's gonna be alright - nothing to worry about"...

He is either a despicable and deplorable apologist or an utterly delusional poor half-wit (I know I am repeating myself but seeing this debate got me so angry!)


@Pete_C: No, Aslan's point as well as Atran' arguments (if you are referring to what he said at the Beyond Belief conference) are not good points but actually rather misleading.
Yes, there is a whole host of sociopolitical factors at work here, but the same amount of poverty and misery exists in many other places on this earth - the ideology of Islam happens to be the only one right now that creates such violent, mediavel behaviour.

And Aslan' comparison to Catholic freedom theology in Honduras are - comparing that to the violent Jihadis - are just beyond the pale in intellectual dishonesty or pitiful ignorance.