Toto

This question does not make any sense.

Elijah

Sorry. I'll try again.

Are you familiar with his work?

Do you know if he sees Christianity as coming from the inclusion of Greek ideas or an attempt to rebuke Greek ideas?

Do you know which ideas in particular he sees Christianity responding to or evolving from?

Toto

Hitchens is not a specialist in this area of history. He is a modern critic of religious thinking of all sorts, especially fundamentalism. Obviously, Christianity picked up some ideas from its surrounding Hellenistic context, but it appears that Hitchens sees Christianity as mostly Jewish.

stephan huller

Hitchens is quite witty. His arguments are greatly strengthened by his writing skill. I don't know that Hitchens has a superior command of the subject matter especially the ancient origins of either Christianity or Judaism. Nevertheless he is a great read. A modern Nietzsche.

semiopen

Hitchen's main point is that God doesn't exist and that religion is mostly harmful. Once he gets into side subjects he doesn't have the same credibility.

That being said,

No Robots

I wonder what he thinks about the 4th of July, what with the colonial rabble foregoing the benefits of English rule in favour of the blathering of that infamous architect of miscegenation, Thomas Jefferson. The peasants are revolting, aren't they though?

Splarnst

Hitchens says controversial things. He's one of the least politically correct figures I can think of.

Elijah

What area are you talking about? The ideas involved in the formation of Christianity shouldn’t be something that requires expertise. Is he a holiday specialist that points out similarities in holidays, that gets confused for being knowledgeable about religion?
It’s a stupid question but who’s understanding of Judaism? If Philo represents the Hellenized Jew; who should I look to see the understanding that Hitchens thinks Christianity was a plagiarism of?
So basically, his argument is that God doesn’t exist but he may not be informed enough to know what they mean when they say “God” back then and could be assuming an uneducated tribal person’s understanding of a deity? I saw he mentioned Plato and Aristotle so I figured there was a chance he was aware or able to understand Christianity within the philosophical movement of the time. Even if he saw it as opposition to the movement, him pointing some atheist towards the ancient philosophers would have been nice.

semiopen

My overall impression is that his message is thought provoking and accurate.

While I don't want to debate his wording, the holiday celebrates a miracle that never happened.

In Happy Hanukkah! in AR I quoted Hanukkah

Whatever the failings of Josephus, it is inconceivable that he wouldn't mention the oil miracle if there was one. Without this miracle, I don't see a single redeeming feature of the holiday.

Granted as modern Western people we don't protest much about the holiday of Halloween, so perhaps we should give Hanuakkah at least the same respect. On the other hand, none of the people who celebrate Halloween are serious about it, the same can't be said about Hanukkah.

Hitchens correctly remarks that Xmas has none of the negative features of Hanukkah and has wide spread appeal even among non Christians.

J.F. Gaul

You don't think much of Nietzsche, do you?