Christopher Hitchens Dies At 62 910
An anonymous reader sends this quote from the NY Times:
"Christopher Hitchens, a slashing polemicist in the tradition of Thomas Paine and George Orwell who trained his sights on targets as various as Henry Kissinger, the British monarchy and Mother Teresa, wrote a best-seller attacking religious belief, and dismayed his former comrades on the left by enthusiastically supporting the American-led war in Iraq, died Thursday at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He was 62. He took pains to emphasize that he had not revised his position on atheism, articulated in his best-selling 2007 book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, although he did express amused appreciation at the hope, among some concerned Christians, that he might undergo a late-life conversion. Mr. Hitchens's latest collection of writings, Arguably: Essays, published this year, has been a best-seller and ranked among the top 10 books of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review."
Parthenon marbles (Score:5, Informative)
Among Greeks, probably best known for one of his less-blockbuster books, 1997's The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification [versobooks.com].
Re:Not all religions are bad (Score:3, Informative)
In comparison, Theravada Buddhism is almost completely different. It promotes the idea of people thinking themselves and not just accepting what someone else tells them to. It doesn't believe in some imaginary persons or miracles - Buddha has actually lived, and isn't viewed as some kind of more than a human. It also teaches you to respect other people and in karmas law. The whole religion isn't so much an religion but good guidelines for life.
Right. So, not all religions are bad - the ones which aren't really religions can be good.
If it can reasonably be called a religion, it's bad. "Promoting the idea of people thinking themselves" is not religion in any meaningful sense of the term.
Re:The Atlantic (Score:5, Informative)
I meant it to be complimentary, as he was clearly a smart guy with a talent for communicating.
Re:Not all religions are bad (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not condemning Hitchens for having an opinion that's different than mine. I'm condemning Hitchens for promoting a war that's left at least a hundred thousand civilians dead.
Re:Not all religions are bad (Score:5, Informative)
I think it is nice that you brought up Dominionism*. Is is a movement that Christians as a whole are either willfully ignorant of or manipulated to the point that they are forced to agree, with the stakes being their own souls. Not looking this movement in the eye is modern American Christendom's single greatest failure; they allowed fascists to sneak in and pervert their highest ideals.
*For those not familiar with it, Dominionism, it is derived from a passage in Genesis: "and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."
There is even a Dominion Church that actively advocates, very literally, world domination. Yes, the Evil Genius world domination. Many of these churches require that you walk through their book store before entering and exiting the sanctuary (at least in the two I have been in), making it the "Cracker Barrel Restaurant and Old Country Store" of Christendom. They even ask business owners to join their Dominion Business Network. In a couple US cities you'll find yourself driving past a Dominion Carwash, Dominion Title Loan and Dominion Fried Chicken, all business network members who are obligated to send non-taxable donations for inclusion in the Business Network Directory (I'd love to know if it also covers any licensing fees for use of the Dominion name).
Re:Not all religions are bad (Score:5, Informative)
Name me one wicked action that was committed in the name of religion.
I can't name one wicked action but I can name several.
How about The Crusades (1095-1291) which were primarily against the Muslims but also triggered increased persecution of Jews.
How about:
the Medieval Inquisition (1231-16th century)
the Spanish Inquisition (1478-1834)
the Portuguese Inquisition (1536-1821)
the Roman Inquisition (1542-c. 1860)
How about the numerous witch trials from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
Yeah, nothing wicked there.
Re:Not all religions are bad (Score:5, Informative)
There's even a book, Zen at War [thezensite.com] by Brian Daizen Victoria specifically focused on how Zen influenced Japanese ideology for WWII.
Re:Not all religions are bad (Score:3, Informative)
Person 1: There are bad aspects to X. Person 2: No! Here is a good aspect to X!
That's really a caricature of the argument. The hard-care atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins aren't arguing that religion has bad aspects to it, they're arguing that religion has no good aspects to it, no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I mean, Hitchens did not title his book, "Is God Great? Maybe We Should Think Carefully About This Religion Thing", he titled the book "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" so its pretty clear where he's coming from.
What I find rather striking is not the thesis, but rather, the unwavering commitment to the idea. Hitchens had, like his fellow atheist Richard Dawkins, a deeply held belief that religion was fundamentally bad, and was unwilling to question this belief. His atheism was unshakable, and he was unable to listen with an open mind to any evidence or argument that contradicted that belief, to concede that perhaps once in a while, people found solace or guidance in religion, or that faith or the guiding principles of the Judeo-Christian religions had in some way contributed to our civilization. He argued with the ferocity of the True Believer who tolerated no dissent. In other words, he was guilty of precisely the narrow-minded, dogmatic, zealous, self-righteous thinking that he condemned religious people for. He didn't just disbelieve in God, he disbelieved in God with a righteous passion, and then went to the masses to spread the word and convert other people to his way of thinking. He was a fundamentalist atheist. He was an evangelical disbeliever. In other words, he was a hypocrite. I'm an atheist, and I think Hitchens was a disgrace to atheism. It's possible to be an atheist but to be open minded and to respect other people, Hitchens did neither.