Collision - Hitchens Rides Again

Zillah

So I just watched Hitchens' new movie and I rather enjoyed it. For those of you not familiar with it, the basic premise is that Hitchens and a pastor by the name of Douglas Williams travel together for a period engaging in public and private debates, supposedly on the topic of "Is Christianity Good for the World?" though they frequently (or, more accurately, primarily) get into more broad theological and philosophical debates.

If you don't want to know more about the film then get out now, but then again if you're that worried about having a plot-less film spoiled then you shouldn't have come here in the first place, now should you?

General impressions:
Hitchens, much to my disappointment, restrains his usual tyrannical style in favour of a more Dawkins-esque gentle thoroughness. Williams, much to my satisfaction, has not a hint of the usual precious offense-laden response we usually see from the religious in debates. The editing, in artistic terms, is both stylish and a little overboard. I was very impressed until the scene with multiscreen shots with gansta music playing over it came on. In terms of editing for content, I'd be very curious to see the material that was not included, much of it must have been relatively arbitrary decisions on what to use.

The debate:
Oddly enough they actually spend more time arguing over each other's fundamental positions and rationale than actually addressing the key question about Christianity. Most of it we've heard before but a few points were quite interesting.

Near the start Hitchens makes a great point: If we assume humanity has existed for 100,000 years then God and heaven looked down upon us for 98,000 years, letting everything proceed without intervention, and then decided to send Jesus to a primarily illiterate desert society in the middle east, instead of, say, China, which had a flourishing literate society.

Williams' entire argument can be described as the following: Not surprisingly, he tends to dodge the question. Rather than try to argue how Christianity is good for the world, he attacks Hitchens moral basis and seems happy to leave it at that. He asserts that everything begins with an axiom, his being that God exists. As an atheist, you have nothing to base your world view on, hence even living by rationality is irrational because you need some basis by which to choose rationality, as if you were hanging it from a sky hook. Which is technically true, we have to begin with certain axioms but if my opponent and I cannot agree that rationality exists and is useful then I don't see what discussion is to be had.

Williams really lands a fantastic blow against Hitchens at the end where he challenges him to justify the objective moral language he uses. I, being a morale relativist and in ways a nihilist, could easily respond, but Hitchens was entirely incapable.

Which brings me to a complaint I've had with several well known atheists. Sam Harris has made similar untenable objective moral claims but has never attempted to justify them. Which begs the question; Are they truly in an untenable position, or are they, as public figures, deliberately being dishonest for the sake of their message. Explaining that morality is subjective, but that that doesn't matter, is a very fine and difficult point to make, especially to the public at large.

Anyway, I enjoyed it, I'd recommend watching it, but I really would like to hear a clarification from Hitchens on the objectivity point. At one point he seems to make an almost Catholic-like argument of it being a precious mystery. Baffling.

Oh, and the very last scene is really quite strange, and I think Hitchens very well might be drunk during it, but I'll leave you to go watch it yourself :pac:

nozzferrahhtoo

I would not bother watching of buying this. The debates that the movie is derived from are available around you tube, google video and torrents etc. These are full and unedited.

Lines like this:

Williams really lands a fantastic blow against Hitchens at the end where he challenges him to justify the objective moral language he uses. I, being a morale relativist and in ways a nihilist, could easily respond, but Hitchens was entirely incapable.

May seem true in an edited down badly produced video, but I can tell you from watching Hitchens videos both with and without Williams and from reading his books, that it is ENTIRELY inaccurate and Hitchens is more than capable of justifying his moral position and language. They just choose not to show his reply in this DVD it seems.

I hasten to point out that this is not Zillah's fault, he merely watched an edited down video which gave him this impression. So it is the video and the impression it gives that I call inaccurate, not Zillah.

Another reason I would not buy this video is I would not risk giving any money which might go back to Douglas Williams in any way. His Idaho ministry has ties to White Supremacy, he co writes books that try to suggest slavery was not so bad after all and he is powerfully anti homosexual using the bible to show that death and exile are the punishments recommended for them.

Not one penny of my hard earned cash is going in his direction.

Zillah

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

The debates that the movie is derived from are available around you tube, google video and torrents etc. These are full and unedited. -- Not one penny of my hard earned cash is going in his direction.

Heh.

Anyway, when you say Hitchens addresses these points, can you link me to anything? In the film he does attempt a response and it is woefully inadequate by my standards.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Another reason I would not buy this video is I would not risk giving any money which might go back to Douglas Williams in any way. His Idaho ministry has ties to White Supremacy, he co writes books that try to suggest slavery was not so bad after all and he is powerfully anti homosexual using the bible to show that death and exile are the punishments recommended for them.

Sigh. He seemed so pleasant.

nozzferrahhtoo

Zillah,

Not sure what you mean by the bolding of my text and the word "heh". Can you clarify?

As for the linking you to something, I already did. Go to the three sources I linked and watch the full unedited debates with Hitchens and Wilson. Buy his book and read it. Then watch the rest of his talks and debates also available on you tube. Theres well over 50 hours of material there on you tube alone all of which I have watched in the last 2 years.

Zillah

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Not sure what you mean by the bolding of my text and the word "heh". Can you clarify?

I was obtusely confessing to illegally downloading copyright material. There, now you've made me say it and the FBI will be at my door in moments.

As for the linking you to something, I already did. Go to the three sources I linked and watch the full unedited debates with Hitchens and Wilson. Buy his book and read it. Then watch the rest of his talks and debates also available on you tube. Theres well over 50 hours of material there on you tube alone all of which I have watched in the last 2 years.

Could you please just summarise his justification for objective morality in a Godless world? You said he's done it before, I'll believe you if you said he said it somewhere, I just want to know what it is.

Dades

Zillah wrote: »

I was obtusely confessing to illegally downloading copyright material. There, now you've made me say it and the FBI will be at my door in moments.

/I should know better than this.

nozzferrahhtoo

Got you now, sorry I was too slow to pick that up from the bolding of the text.

Also I NEVER said he justified “objective morality in a Godless world”. I have never said that, would never say it and should never say it. I said “Hitchens is more than capable of justifying his moral position and language”.

Hitchens does not believe in, nor do I, an “objective” morality. He says we have an innate recognition and need for Human Solidarity and Society and morality flows from there.

As I said, if you have the impression Hitchens thinks there is an objective morality (at least as I understand the phrase) or is unable to justify the language he uses on the subject of morality then either you totally took the DVD up wrong, or the editing on the DVD is atrocious enough to have left you with that position.

I wrote a blog entry on this point following a debate between Hitchens and D’Souza which might clarify my position on this a little further…

http://blog.atheist.ie/?p=37

a4j_ie

I have to say that I find Hitchens to be an arrogant guy!

That said. I think that he does a good job in this movie and is very courteous. I do feel however that Hitchens does not respond very well to many of Wilsons arguments and it seems that Hitchens does not have a good response to there being an objective morality in the world.

What do you think?

nozzferrahhtoo

A4J,

Already told above what I think of this. Firstly I think if you watch an edited DVD you will get the impression some things were not answered that in fact were. Try you tubing the full debates.

Secondly Hitchens, like myself, sees no data, argument or evidence that there IS an objective morality in the world, so why would he need to provide an answer for it or explain it in any way? This is about as useful as asking for his explanation of fairies.

CathalMc

I watched Collision recently and there was no new arguments presented that can't be found online in these debates - and it's pretty watered down at that. It seems to focus on the men and their relationship rather than the arguments. I'm uncertain if this has been referenced before on this forum but http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=50 is a superb link to a huge (500+ at current count) number of atheism-related debates.