Letters to the Editor
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God yes or no
Is there something else? I used to refer to myself as post-theist counter-theist and so on. I am however an ex practicing alcoholic sober for over twenty years. I also love to hear amazing grace. It has been said that even if you concede all the terrible atrocities committed in gods name would not the world still be worse off without the acts of saints Ignatius, Francis,and Mother Teresa for instance. I do not know the answer to that but I recently ended a frienship of twelve years with 'Promise Keeper'ex friend who refused to stop sending e-mails celebrating the death of muslims. Without jesus all of the atrocities committed by our troops in Iraq would be what they are. I have seen how violent an AA meeting can get when you cut off smoking. Telling people it is not okay to cheat and abuse everyone forever. That simply confessing or just repenting your sins will not get you 32 virgins in the afterlife, is going to meet with some anger .
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Yawn.
The atheists who think that science and God are incompatible are as inescapably stupid as the fundamentalists who think the same thing.
Yawn. I'll pay attention to an atheist talking about theology when they, well, understand the basic precepts of the modern theological, scholarly discourse.
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Golden Boy
Okay, I'm going to say it was Freud. More than a guess, but less than absolutely positive.
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Hitchens Has Become a Reflexive Contrarian
You know...the boring kind. It's a shame, really. He was once the best writer on the Left, period. And his rhetorical donnybrooks with Alexander Cockburn in the Letters to the Editor section of The Nation were the journalistic equivalent of "The Rumble in the Jungle." And if he keeps it up with the booze, he's going to wind up just like Ali but without the fame.
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xxxx
I think to make blanket statements about Islam and any other religion shows unenlightenment. It is easy to judge anything, it is harder to understand. There is so much written on faith in a sincere effort to understand it. Needless to say I don't think Hitchens has a sincere bone in his body and a book attacking anything just fits his public persona. It is just strange that a lot of atheists gripe that people of faith try to impose their beliefs in society, government, etc. However atheists are guilty of the same, their non-belief in God is a belief, which they also try to impose in public and private sectors as this book demonstrates. I don't think there ever will be understanding which should be the upshot of all discourse, if we continue on a path of judgement and insincere criticism.
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There's no God? Yeah, but...
Hitchens is going to be interviewed about his book tonight on Australian national radio. As an atheist and someone who despairs about the effects of "belief" combined with human nature, I was really looking forward to it, but this article has totally drained me of any anticipation. I haven't read the book, and I obviously haven't heard the interview, but if he's just talking about the impossibility and a "god" and the delusions of believers, well... tell me something I don't know. I'd have to agree that the books sounds like more "preaching to the converted" (so to speak) and, while it may reach some people, I think we need to move beyond that if we're going to actually achieve anything useful.
As the author of the article and a number of posters have said, until we can really connect to those things that make faith/religion so attractive - purpose, life after death, community etc - then it's hard to see what ridiculing people's core beliefs is going to achieve. Religion can't be removed, but maybe it can be "evolved"... but by what, and how? That's what I'm interested in.
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Faith is the devil's masterpiece
I have my own quarrels with Hitchens, and while I have not read this book, I expect it to be filled with the same inconsistencies and received wisdom and unsourced assertions that distinguish his other works.
But I am pleased to see yet another prominent commentator take on the filthy pernicious mental illness that is faith.
Islam is a fundamentally wicked institution. The rest of the Yahweh cult is similarly toxic, but Islam has really outdone its older brethren in transforming a mostly harmless delusion into a mass murder cult.
I yearn for the day when the Diagnostic Statistical Manual defines Acquired Cultural Delusional Syndrome, complete with protocols fpor diagnosis, intervention, and treatment. Belief in that which cannot be proven is a disorder, and the sooner the rest of society accepts that, the better for everyone.
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marx is not Great either
Hitchens is a Marxist. Throwing bricks at Christians probably helps him deal with his icky feelings over the millions of atrocities committed by his own atheistic pseudo-religion.
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monique_des
"However atheists are guilty of the same, their non-belief in God is a belief, which they also try to impose in public and private sectors as this book demonstrates."
You can't compare writing a book of opinion to legislation that prohibits atheists from holding public office. You can't compare it to elected officials saying atheists don't have the same rights as believers. Most Americans won't vote for an atheist and they're happy to say so because they know it's okay to be bigoted against atheists.
So let's not pretend that a few recent opinion books supporting the philosophy of atheism are anything like the government supported bigotry and discrimination towards atheists that has existed since the first atheist said, "Uh, that doesn't really make sense."
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Farewell once good soldier...
The deep schizophrenia that beset Hitchins over that last ten years has left nothing but an articulate but deranged psychiatric specimen. I have no quibble with the theme of his new opus but it is consistent with the foreboding but imagined black phantasmagoria that have haunted and eaten away at the Hitchens' tenebra-filled mind. Chris needs lots of sleep but won't get the therapy he needs because strong minds never entertain the inner-dialogue that permits them to consider having gone mad. Farwell, Christopher, we once knew ye...
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Hitchens is not a Marxist.
Look, I don't agree with Hitchens on very much at all anymore, but if you're going to disagree with the guy (or even ridicule his beliefs), you should stick to facts (his beliefs regarding Iraq are often ridiculous, after all). Short posts calling him a commie or a drunk are no different than the Free Republic posts on Al Gore that start off with cracks about his weight.