Freethought & Rationalism Archive

ex-preacher · 05-05-2005, 10:35 AM

The more I read of Hitchins, the more I like him. I recently came across his comments on Pope John Paul II.

From http://slate.msn.com/id/2116443/

Quote:

Without, it seems, quite noticing what they are saying, the partisans of the late pope have been praising him for his many apologies. He apologized to the Jewish people for the Vatican's glacial coldness during the Final Solution, and for historic filiations between the church and anti-Semitism. He apologized to the Eastern Orthodox Christians, and to the Muslims, for the appalling damage done to civilization by papal advocacy of the Crusades, and by forced conversion and massacre in the Balkans during the church's open alliance with fascism during World War II. He apologized to the world of science and reason by admitting that Galileo should not have been condemned by the Inquisition. These are not small climb-downs, and they do not apply just to the past. They are and were admissions that the Roman Catholic Church has been responsible for the retarding of human development on a colossal scale.

However, "be not afraid." The God-given right of the papacy to make and enforce absolute judgments is not at all at stake. Popes may have been wrong on everything, but they were right in general. By the time the church apologizes for saying that condoms are worse than AIDS, or admits that it was complicit at best in the mass murder in Rwanda, another few generations will have died out. This is almost exactly the sort of stuff with which Communists and their fellow travelers once had to content themselves. There had indeed been "spots on Stalin's sun," as one hack so prettily phrased it. But the leading role of the party was still a sure thing.

[snip]

Finally, if the pope is to have so much credit for the liberation of Eastern Europe, he ought to accept his responsibility for the enslavement of the Middle East. He not only opposed the removal of Saddam Hussein in 2003, but the use of force to get him out of Kuwait in 1991. I have never read any deployment of Augustinian argument, in the latter case, that would not qualify it as a just war. Moreover, the pope made a visit to Damascus not long ago, and sat quietly outside the Grand Mosque while the Assad regime greeted him as one who understood that Muslims and Catholics had a common enemy—in the Jews who had killed Christ. (That he may already have been senescent at this point is not an answer: It is a problem, though, for those who believe that he was Christ's vicar on earth.)

Unbelievers are more merciful and understanding than believers, as well as more rational. We do not believe that the pope will face judgment or eternal punishment for the millions who will die needlessly from AIDS, or for his excusing and sheltering of those who committed the unpardonable sin of raping and torturing children, or for the countless people whose sex lives have been ruined by guilt and shame and who are taught to respect the body only when it is a lifeless cadaver like that of Terri Schiavo. For us, this day is only the interment of an elderly and querulous celibate, who came too late and who stayed too long, and whose primitive ideology did not permit him the true self-criticism that could have saved him, and others less innocent, from so many errors and crimes.

Anybody out there have strong opinions on Hitchins? Love him? Hate him?

MrHambre · 05-05-2005, 11:00 AM

I used to love reading Hitchens's columns in the Nation way back when, but during the post-9/11 era, he jumped ship to become a neoconservative hack. Since then, it seems Hitchens retains very little of his former wit and acuity. I thought his attack on Fahrenheit 911 (discussed elsewhere) was half-assed, and merely repeated incoherent arguments that he had used against anti-Iraq-war folks before the invasion.

I recently saw him on a BookTV panel with Francine Prose and Michael Korda. He was shilling a new Jefferson bio, and scornfully related that Jefferson & his wife used to while away the hours at Monticello reading aloud passages from Tristram Shandy. The other panelists may have been too intimidated by Hitchens's reputation to point out that Sterne's work is one of the acknowledged masterworks of its era.

Hiero5ant · 05-05-2005, 11:12 AM

Money quotes by Hitchens from my vault:

"Being religious is like living in North Korea. You have endless opportunities to praise The Leader, to thank Him for giving you everything, to thank Him for looking after you, to thank Him for all his boundless gifts, to thank Him for all His tireless efforts on your behalf. A Celestial North Korea is what the religious believer wants, but there are two differences: you *can* defect from North Korea, and you can die and just cease to exist. But if you're a religious believer, The Leader goes on persecuting you after you're dead -- you have to go on praising Him forever, and thanking Him for being born... this is servility squared."

"It may very well be that everything, including this evening, is nothing but a grand cosmic joke. I personally often have the feeling that we are born into a losing struggle. My investigations suggest that none of us come out of this a winner. But there is something--there is something in us that refuses to be ruled by fools or frauds or knaves or hereditary dolts in the meantime--in this short vale between being expelled from the uterus and hitting the opposite wall that's studded with nails."

"It's obviously too much to expect that a Bronze Age demagogue should have remembered to condemn drug abuse, drunken driving, or offenses against gender equality, or to demand prayer in the schools. Still, to have left rape and child abuse and genocide and slavery out of the account is to have been negligent to some degree, even by the lax standards of the time. I wonder what would happen if secularists were now to insist that the verses of the Bible that actually recommend enslavement, mutilation, stoning, and mass murder of civilians be incised on the walls of, say, public libraries? There are many more than 10 commandments in the Old Testament, and I live for the day when Americans are obliged to observe all of them, including the ox-goring and witch-burning ones. (Who is Judge Moore to pick and choose?) Too many editorialists have described the recent flap as a silly confrontation with exhibitionist fundamentalism, when the true problem is our failure to recognize that religion is not just incongruent with morality but in essential ways incompatible with it."

We need more people like him around.

Toto · 05-05-2005, 11:54 AM

He's done some good work - his work on Mother Theresa with the title "The Missionary Position" - some public figures will not mention that title. He's done some stuff you want to overlook, like supporting Bush, as if going after a few Islamic extremists makes up for what he's doing in this country.

Spanish_Inquisitor · 05-05-2005, 12:09 PM

I always liked this one, and kept it bookmarked. I think one of Hiero5ant's quotes came from it.

Link. Another quote:

Quote:

One is presuming (is one not?) that this is the same god who actually created the audience he was addressing. This leaves us with the insoluble mystery of why he would have molded ("in his own image," yet) a covetous, murderous, disrespectful, lying, and adulterous species. Create them sick, and then command them to be well? What a mad despot this is, and how fortunate we are that he exists only in the minds of his worshippers.

This was a good one too.

SI

capsaicin67 · 05-05-2005, 02:02 PM

I enjoy him and find him very entertaining. His takes on religious sacred cows always provoke overt squirminess and visible visceral revulsion in the mainstream talking heads [Mathews, Scarborough etc.]. And he's usually right.

And all the better is the fact that he's not easily pigeonholed as a liberal since he gave up his The Nation membership card. Conservatives dislike him for his intellectualism and anti-religion, liberals dislike him for his squabbles with The Nation and his pro-Iraq War stance. I like him because he says what he thinks. But he does come off as a pompous blowhard at times, and probably interpersonally would be a bit, um, difficult. I wish he were more visible though as I enjoy hearing his rants.

nelsondogg · 05-05-2005, 02:06 PM

He's good at ripping people after they die. Before they die too sometimes.

Wallener · 05-05-2005, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ex-preacher

Anybody out there have strong opinions on Hitchins? Love him? Hate him?

It's been amazing watch him do a Dennis Miller and go from Cred to Dead. At this point, he's firmly in my "irrelevant" pile.

Hiero5ant · 05-06-2005, 07:11 AM

1) It's Hitchens, not Hitchins.

2) The website, for those interested, is http://hitchensweb.com/

3) Lo and behold, I wake up this morning and another missive of his finds its way onto my screen:

"Then again, hundreds of thousands of young Americans are now patrolling and guarding hazardous frontiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Is there a single thinking person who does not hope that secular forces arise in both countries, and who does not realize that the success of our cause depends on a wall of separation, in Islamic society, between church and state? How can we maintain this cause abroad and subvert it at home?"

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006649

Keep them coming, Hitch. "Irrelevant", indeed.

capsaicin67 · 05-06-2005, 11:58 PM

Yup. Almost no one speaks as courageously and scathingly about superstition/religion in anything remotely smacking of mainstream journalism.

05-05-2005, 11:00 AM	#2
MrHambre Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Massachusetts, USA Posts: 1,206	Chris, we hardly knew ye I used to love reading Hitchens's columns in the Nation way back when, but during the post-9/11 era, he jumped ship to become a neoconservative hack. Since then, it seems Hitchens retains very little of his former wit and acuity. I thought his attack on Fahrenheit 911 (discussed elsewhere) was half-assed, and merely repeated incoherent arguments that he had used against anti-Iraq-war folks before the invasion. I recently saw him on a BookTV panel with Francine Prose and Michael Korda. He was shilling a new Jefferson bio, and scornfully related that Jefferson & his wife used to while away the hours at Monticello reading aloud passages from Tristram Shandy. The other panelists may have been too intimidated by Hitchens's reputation to point out that Sterne's work is one of the acknowledged masterworks of its era.

05-06-2005, 07:11 AM	#9
Hiero5ant Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Gaunilo's Island Posts: 768	Bookkeeping points 1) It's Hitchens, not Hitchins. 2) The website, for those interested, is http://hitchensweb.com/ 3) Lo and behold, I wake up this morning and another missive of his finds its way onto my screen: "Then again, hundreds of thousands of young Americans are now patrolling and guarding hazardous frontiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Is there a single thinking person who does not hope that secular forces arise in both countries, and who does not realize that the success of our cause depends on a wall of separation, in Islamic society, between church and state? How can we maintain this cause abroad and subvert it at home?" http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006649 Keep them coming, Hitch. "Irrelevant", indeed.

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05-05-2005, 11:12 AM	#3
Hiero5ant Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Gaunilo's Island Posts: 768	Money quotes by Hitchens from my vault: "Being religious is like living in North Korea. You have endless opportunities to praise The Leader, to thank Him for giving you everything, to thank Him for looking after you, to thank Him for all his boundless gifts, to thank Him for all His tireless efforts on your behalf. A Celestial North Korea is what the religious believer wants, but there are two differences: you can defect from North Korea, and you can die and just cease to exist. But if you're a religious believer, The Leader goes on persecuting you after you're dead -- you have to go on praising Him forever, and thanking Him for being born... this is servility squared." "It may very well be that everything, including this evening, is nothing but a grand cosmic joke. I personally often have the feeling that we are born into a losing struggle. My investigations suggest that none of us come out of this a winner. But there is something--there is something in us that refuses to be ruled by fools or frauds or knaves or hereditary dolts in the meantime--in this short vale between being expelled from the uterus and hitting the opposite wall that's studded with nails." "It's obviously too much to expect that a Bronze Age demagogue should have remembered to condemn drug abuse, drunken driving, or offenses against gender equality, or to demand prayer in the schools. Still, to have left rape and child abuse and genocide and slavery out of the account is to have been negligent to some degree, even by the lax standards of the time. I wonder what would happen if secularists were now to insist that the verses of the Bible that actually recommend enslavement, mutilation, stoning, and mass murder of civilians be incised on the walls of, say, public libraries? There are many more than 10 commandments in the Old Testament, and I live for the day when Americans are obliged to observe all of them, including the ox-goring and witch-burning ones. (Who is Judge Moore to pick and choose?) Too many editorialists have described the recent flap as a silly confrontation with exhibitionist fundamentalism, when the true problem is our failure to recognize that religion is not just incongruent with morality but in essential ways incompatible with it." We need more people like him around.

05-05-2005, 11:54 AM	#4
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	He's done some good work - his work on Mother Theresa with the title "The Missionary Position" - some public figures will not mention that title. He's done some stuff you want to overlook, like supporting Bush, as if going after a few Islamic extremists makes up for what he's doing in this country.

05-05-2005, 02:02 PM	#6
capsaicin67 Contributor Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Gold coast plain, sea, scrubland, mountain range. Posts: 20,955	I enjoy him and find him very entertaining. His takes on religious sacred cows always provoke overt squirminess and visible visceral revulsion in the mainstream talking heads [Mathews, Scarborough etc.]. And he's usually right. And all the better is the fact that he's not easily pigeonholed as a liberal since he gave up his The Nation membership card. Conservatives dislike him for his intellectualism and anti-religion, liberals dislike him for his squabbles with The Nation and his pro-Iraq War stance. I like him because he says what he thinks. But he does come off as a pompous blowhard at times, and probably interpersonally would be a bit, um, difficult. I wish he were more visible though as I enjoy hearing his rants.

05-05-2005, 02:06 PM	#7
nelsondogg Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: LA Posts: 645	He's good at ripping people after they die. Before they die too sometimes.

05-06-2005, 11:58 PM	#10
capsaicin67 Contributor Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Gold coast plain, sea, scrubland, mountain range. Posts: 20,955	Yup. Almost no one speaks as courageously and scathingly about superstition/religion in anything remotely smacking of mainstream journalism.

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