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The Hitch is dead.

12357

Comments

  • Site Banned Posts: 8,331 ✭✭✭Brown Bomber


    Lucy8080 wrote: »
    i wont reply to another challenge here.

    new thread please.

    apologies to all and any.

    There is no challenge. He was a warmonger. While your raising a glass to him perhaps you could also spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of people now dead due the war that he advocated for.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    €37 actually.

    And no.

    Jesus, 20 at the border. :pac:

    I actually bought the bottle a little over a week ago for me and a mate to drink while watching some stuff with the Hitch since we knew he might not be around next year. Circumstances delayed it and I've left it unopened til both of us can have a crack at it now under slightly different circumstances.



    Something I meant to say earlier in the thread was that when I saw the news of Hitchens' death scroll along on BBC they also showed a news report about a baby born at (I think) 24 weeks weighing half a pound in America and she should be home with her family before the end of the year. He loved that kind of amazing stuff that we've managed to somehow do with the useless collections of replicating matter that we all are. Circle of life etc. :pac:


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 23,316 ✭✭✭✭amacachi


    There is no challenge. He was a warmonger. While your raising a glass to him perhaps you could also spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of people now dead due the war that he advocated for.

    His trigger finger must've been worn down to a nub before he died.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,981 ✭✭✭[-0-]


    My thought's on Hitch's passing.
    http://semirandommusings.blogspot.com/

    God obviously lost the debate and Hitch said he would stop ridiculing him if he got rid of Kim Jong II. :P In all seriousness though I would love to hear what he would have said regarding his passing.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    ... to a warmonger.
    Okay you've had your say. We know where you stand. You're not going to wreck this thread with a tangent about the US war (one of which has already been stopped).

    There is a "New Thread" button if you want to make a stand there.

    Thanking you.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Lucy8080 wrote: »
    the paxman interview with hitch is now starting on bbc 2. thought id let ya know. enjoy.

    I suppose some will see Hitch facing into death in the same way that he faced into everything else (it would appear).

    But it struck me as hollowed out fist-waving. It was as if, after a life time of battles in which he had gotten used to being the victor (such was his unapologetic, "no regrets" response to Paxmans probing of doubts) he had turned around to face this insurmountable opponent ... and shivered in the face of it. Never having developed the tools of humilty or doubt or deep self-reflection (at least they were not on show here) all Hitch could do was approach certain death with the same defiance that had proved so successful in the past. I think he knew how hollow his stance was but, after a lifetimes investment in the proudful polemic, couldn't bring himself to admit it.

    Not in public anyway.


    I've never read him or even seen much of him but I see now the source of the god-model deployed by so many here, It's a cardboard-cut-out-god, constructed with a view to self-righteously and (worryingly, if you took a moment to ponder on it) easily demolishing it - so as not to have to countenance bowing to Him.

    Theologically illiterate (© Terry Eagleton) to jaw-dropping degree (given his figuring to be able to comment intelligently on the subject), Hitch didn't appear to leave open the chance that a God who was claimed to have created this universe would nigh on certainly be more sophisticated and nuanced that the one he was bent on skewering.

    Although denouncing Pascals Wager, he immediately went on to lay his money down on a personal version of it - supposing that God (if he exists and was after all, a decent old skin) would take into account his non-hypocritical approach: "I didn't believe because there was no evidence and couldn't be hypocritical enough to believe in you just in case - that should score me points? No?"

    Were it that God was limited to issuing forth evidence of his existence in a manner deemed sufficient by Hitch. Were it that Hitch's notions as to how God would evaluate Hitch were God's notions as to how he would evaluate Hitch. It's not hard to see who is supposed to bow to who in Hitch's economy.

    Hitch did what so many here do. He clung to simplistic notions of God and constructed a god in an image and likeness that suited him - such that he could live life in whatever the hell way he wanted to without God cramping his style. It's a mad option given the feebleness one's fist waving is reduced to when faced with God's ultimate sanction of death - I mean, your system needs to work for all the game or it don't work at all. And it's a mad option when a God of any kind of sophistication at all will wipe out your arguments in a heart beat.

    My only hope is that a frightened (for that is what I detected), fist-waving Hitch did as the frightened, fist-waving thief on the cross did when advancing death propelled him to the very edge of the precipice. A merciful God saves the most compelling reason that a man reach out for salvation 'til last.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    antiskeptic, you can build up a wall of prose around it, and use words like 'nuance' and 'sophistication' to describe your God, but it won't matter if the basic god-concept has more holes than a Swiss cheese.

    For a start if someone can explain to my why our planet regularly attacks and kills thousands of innocent people (Happy Christmas, 95% Christian Philippines), then maybe we can move on to the next question.

    In the meantime the minutia we'll all missing about your God can wait.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,727 ✭✭✭✭King Mob


    My only hope is that a frightened, fist-waving Hitch did as the thief on the cross did when advancing death propelled him to the edge of the precipice. A merciful God saves the most compelling reason that a man reach out for salvation 'til last.
    So you hope that a dying cancer patient became so scared of dying and of the possible eternal torture that you think God had waiting for him for simply not believing that he skipped any peaceful, rational transition to Christianity and instead betrayed everything he believed and begged for mercy?

    That's a pretty ****ing sick thing to hope for.
    It's a pretty sick thing for a "loving" Christian or God to want to happen to someone.

    But if that's the sort of "sophisticated God" you are waffling on about, then I how can you blame Hitchens for being so eloquently opposed to such a tyrant?


  • Site Banned Posts: 8,331 ✭✭✭Brown Bomber


    Lucy8080 wrote: »
    read about the life thomas paine brown bomber. you will get a feel for hitchens...and what you want and dont want.

    i never realised hitch wrote a book about his life( paines) until a while after my own reading. i got his spirit then...and his own inner struggle...played out bravely in public.

    Surely you don't mean Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’: A Biography by Christopher Hitchens???

    It was thoroughly discredited by John Barrell for The London Review of Books.
    http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n23/john-barrell/the-positions-he-takes

    He shows Hitchens up for his numerous factual errors, shoddy research and very strongly hints at plagiarism.
    It is the more surprising to find these errors, as none of them occur in John Keane’s biography of Paine (1995), on which Hitchens depends heavily – it must have been lying open on his desk as he was writing this book. Here for example is Keane on Watson’s Apology:
    Watson … went so far as to admit that parts of the Pentateuch were not written by Moses and that some of the psalms were not composed by David … Paine took particular pleasure in some of the Bishop’s curious admissions. For example, The Age of Reason questioned whether God really commanded that all men and married women among the Midianites should be slaughtered and their maidens preserved. Not so, the Bishop indignantly retorted. The maidens were not preserved for immoral purposes, as Paine had wickedly suggested, but as slaves, to which Christians could not legitimately object.
    And here is Hitchens: Watson, he tells us,
    was willing to admit that Moses could not have written all of the Pentateuch and that David was not invariably the psalmist. But he would not give too much ground. Paine was quite out of order, wrote the good bishop, in saying that God had ordered the slaughter of all adult male and female Midianites, preserving only the daughters for rapine. On the contrary, the daughters had been preserved solely for the purpose of slavery. No hint of immorality was involved.
    Or here is Keane on the problems Paine encountered in his efforts to publish Part One of Rights of Man:
    Paine finished the first part of Rights of Man on his 54th birthday, 29 January 1791 … The next day, Paine passed the manuscript to the well-known London publisher Joseph Johnson, who set about printing it in time for the opening of Parliament and Washington’s birthday on 22 February. As the unbound copies piled up in the printing shop, Johnson was visited repeatedly by government agents. Although Johnson had already published replies to Burke’s Reflections by Thomas Christie, Mary Wollstonecraft and Capel Lofft, he sensed, correctly, that Paine’s manuscript would attract far more attention and bitter controversy than all of them combined. Fearing the book police, and unnerved by the prospect of arrest and bankruptcy, Johnson suppressed the book on the very day of its scheduled publication.
    And here is Hitchens again:
    Having completed Part One on his 54th birthday, 29 January 1791, Paine made haste to take the manuscript to a printer named Joseph Johnson. The proposed publication deadline, of 22 February, was intended to coincide with the opening of Parliament and the birthday of George Washington. Mr Johnson was a man of some nerve and principle, as he had demonstrated by printing several radical replies to Burke (including the one by Mary Wollstonecraft) but he took fright after several heavy-footed visits from William Pitt’s political police. On the day of publication, he announced that The Rights of Man would not appear under the imprint of his press.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Dades wrote: »
    For a start if someone can explain to my why our planet regularly attacks and kills thousands of innocent people (Happy Christmas, 95% Christian Philippines), then maybe we can move on to the next question.

    1) There is no such thing as an innocent person. Not Christian, not non-Christian. Your structure wobbles from the get go.

    2) A Christian is a Christian when they meet God's definition of a Christian - not mans. We cannot therefore tell what percentage of the population of the Phillippines are Christian.


    3) Genesis 3 “Cursed is the ground because of you". Storms, floods, weeds, disease - is the theological conclusion drawn.
    In the meantime the minutia we'll all missing about your God can wait.

    I would be thinking less about minutiae and more about glaring gaps in understanding.

    Hitchens' model of (the presumably Christian) God saw God creating us sick (sinners) and commanding us that we be well (behave ourselves). It's a mis-comprehension seen with monotonous frequency around here.

    The actual position is that you are born a sinner and are commanded to let God make you well because you are incapable of behaving yourself.

    It struck me as rather pitiable that someone who supposedly knew what they were talking about didn't have even a basic comprehension of the argument they were supposedly demolishing. The man was in his 60's for crying out loud.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    King Mob wrote: »
    So you hope that a dying cancer patient became so scared of dying and of the possible eternal torture


    I wouldn't suppose him fearing possible eternal torture since he didn't believe in God in order to believe in eternal torture. Rather, I'd hope that approaching death would focus his mind on the possibility of something beyond. And if something beyond then possibly a creator and if a creator capable of creating all this then someone who might be able to sidestep the model of God Hitchens had created.

    It's not like it was a very sophisticated one.

    You must remember the bigger picture. The god Hitchens created was created (it is argued) so that Hitchens could shrug of the call God places on all men. You don't have to believe that in order for it to be so.

    If so, then Hitchens wasn't being 'noble'. He was simply plugging his ears shut with this fabricated god of his.


    that you think God had waiting for him for simply not believing that he skipped any peaceful, rational transition to Christianity and instead betrayed everything he believed and begged for mercy?


    What he believed in was self on the throne. Do what I want when I want. Say what I want when and to whom I want. Unapologetically, Unswervingly, Unyieldingly.

    All he would be betraying would be a lie. He doesn't sit on the throne. God does (if God exists). Would you have him cling to a lie?


  • Registered Users Posts: 296 ✭✭Arcus Arrow


    I've never read him or even seen much of him......

    So everything before and after that statement regarding Christopher Hitchens is based on second or third hand impressions, other peoples opinions, supposition, ill-informed conjecture, ignorance and petty insecurity.

    Of course that also sums up all the mental ingredients needed to believe in a god thing.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    1) There is no such thing as an innocent person. Not Christian, not non-Christian. Your structure wobbles from the get go.

    Wow, that tyrant in the sky really has sucked you in with his sicko propaganda hasn't he?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,727 ✭✭✭✭King Mob


    I wouldn't suppose him fearing possible eternal torture since he didn't believe in God in order to believe in eternal torture. Rather, I'd hope that approaching death would focus his mind on the possibility of something beyond. And if something beyond then possibly a creator and if a creator capable of creating all this then someone who might be able to sidestep the model of God Hitchens had created.

    It's not like it was a very sophisticated one.

    You must remember the bigger picture. The god Hitchens created was created (it is argued) so that Hitchens could shrug of the call God places on all men. You don't have to believe that in order for it to be so.

    If so, then Hitchens wasn't being 'noble'. He was simply plugging his ears shut with this fabricated god of his.
    And why would impending death make anything "clearer" exactly?
    And what would drive this revaluation?

    Of course this is based on your notion that Hitchens was working off a parody of god, while you are saying the crap about it being ok for him to let people die.
    It's a wonderful irony.

    What he believed in was self on the throne. Do what I want when I want. Say what I want when and to whom I want. Unapologetically, Unswervingly, Unyieldingly.

    All he would be betraying would be a lie. He doesn't sit on the throne. God does (if God exists). Would you have him cling to a lie?
    I would have him cling to good reasoning and rational thought, not fear and threats as you hoped he caved to.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,421 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    I've never read him or even seen much of him [...] Theologically illiterate [...] to jaw-dropping degree [...] Hitch didn't appear to leave open the chance that a God who was claimed to have created this universe would nigh on certainly be more sophisticated and nuanced that the one he was bent on skewering.
    Two things here:

    1. Hitchens could not skewer any deity, since no deity was never brave enough to go up against him in public. On the contrary, Hitch was brilliant at showing deistic propaganda for the rubbish it is and was able consistently to pwn religious cheerleaders.

    2. If you've never read him or even seen much of him, I'd be intrigued to know exactly how you know he's "theological illiterate" :confused:


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  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    1) There is no such thing as an innocent person. Not Christian, not non-Christian. Your structure wobbles from the get go.

    2) A Christian is a Christian when they meet God's definition of a Christian - not mans. We cannot therefore tell what percentage of the population of the Phillippines are Christian.


    3) Genesis 3 “Cursed is the ground because of you". Storms, floods, weeds, disease - is the theological conclusion drawn.
    You tell me my "structure wobbles" after saying there is no such thing as an innocent person? Not even a new born baby? What about a fetus?

    And then you have the gall to suggest that their may not really be Christian enough - as if that matters when you're talking about arbitrarily snuffing out whole communities.

    Lastly quoting the bible does not explain why every man woman and child has to be born guilty and can be wiped out a the whim of the God that created them.
    Hitchens' model of (the presumably Christian) God saw God creating us sick (sinners) and commanding us that we be well (behave ourselves). It's a mis-comprehension seen with monotonous frequency around here.

    The actual position is that you are born a sinner and are commanded to let God make you well because you are incapable of behaving yourself.
    I don't know which is worse, tbh. Both are rife with a sick, inherent guilt on the part of humans, and an inability on the part of God to control or fix his flawed creation.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    King Mob wrote: »
    And why would impending death make anything "clearer" exactly? And what would drive this revaluation?

    Fear, I imagine.

    A house of straw on a summers day is a fine thing. It's when the storm approaches that you begin to wonder if the dwelling you've constructed will be fit for use.

    Of course this is based on your notion that Hitchens was working off a parody of god, while you are saying the crap about it being ok for him to let people die.
    It's a wonderful irony.


    I'm not sure what the irony is supposed to be?


    I would have him cling to good reasoning and rational thought, not fear and threats as you hoped he caved to.

    Depends on what he truly thought of his wrongdoing. Outwardly he had no regrets. Inwardly it might be another story. And if a sense of having done actually wrong then a sense that a righteous God might have something to say about that. If he exists.


    I don't see anything unreasonable about it if he figured he had wrongs on his plate that couldn't be dealt with by 'forgiving' himself or having 'no regrets'


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    Do you not feel even a little ashamed about what you're saying, antiskeptic?

    The man lived and died without the god you can't distinguish from reality. Didn't need him, at any point. He's not even a week dead and you're claiming a man you know buggerall about by your own admission probably didn't mean it.

    There appear to be enough planks in your eyes to build a small fleet.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Dades wrote: »
    You tell me my "structure wobbles" after saying there is no such thing as an innocent person? Not even a new born baby? What about a fetus?

    It would appear not. Sin is in our constitution. I wouldn't conflate God wiping out humanity with God sending all that humanity to hell though.


    Everyone dies Dades. God kills us all ultimately.

    And then you have the gall to suggest that their may not really be Christian enough - as if that matters when you're talking about arbitrarily snuffing out whole communities.


    I don't recognize "Christian enough". It's Christian or not Christian. No in betweens.

    Again, I'd point out everyone dying at some point. That a group happen to die in one place at one time is no different ultimately than the a multitude more who died in that same time but were scattered over the globe.

    You're making a big deal about death focused at a location. I can't say I see the significance of it given "death at work all the time everywhere".


    Lastly quoting the bible does not explain why every man woman and child has to be born guilty and can be wiped out a the whim of the God that created them.

    Adam the head of mankind. The head fell, all under his dominion fell. I wouldn't say God kills on a whim. I'd say that he kills when his purpose for giving life to the individual has been met.

    Remember, my viewpoint is that this life is a precursor to an eternal event. If I see the second half I don't get as worked up as someone who thinks the first half is the whole game.

    I don't know which is worse, tbh. Both are rife with a sick, inherent guilt on the part of humans, and an inability on the part of God to control or fix his flawed creation.

    The inherent guilt of humanity isn't a problem for the saved. And so isn't a terminal problem. It's only part of the set up of options: whether you want to cling to that inherent guilt or not.

    The eternal realm will consist of a fixed humanity residing with God on a fixed earth. It's only the ones who insisted on retaining their brokenness that are thrown on the scrap heap.

    This flawed (rather, fallen) creation isn't at all as flawed as you suppose. It's perfectly suited for ascertaining your response to God's offer. And Hitchens. And mine. Once that's established, it can be rolled up and recreated as new.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,727 ✭✭✭✭King Mob


    Fear, I imagine.

    A house of straw on a summers day is a fine thing. It's when the storm approaches that you begin to wonder if the dwelling you've constructed will be fit for use.
    So my point stands and everything you wrote in between was yet more of you sophistry and waffle.
    You hoped a cancer patient got so scared he skipped rational discourse and jumped over to your side.
    As I said, that's a sick thing to hope for.
    I'm not sure what the irony is supposed to be?
    Because you are describing a horrible, uncaring, vicious tyrant who brainwashes people via fear.
    While at the same time you are saying that Hitchens was using a strawman of a god.
    Depends on what he truly thought of his wrongdoing. Outwardly he had no regrets. Inwardly it might be another story. And if a sense of having done actually wrong then a sense that a righteous God might have something to say about that. If he exists.
    And what, pray tell was his "wrongdoing"?
    I don't see anything unreasonable about it if he figured he had wrongs on his plate that couldn't be dealt with by 'forgiving' himself or having 'no regrets'
    Except it being born out of fear and regret, not enlightenment or rational realisation.
    But hey, any victory for the lord, right?


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Sarky wrote: »
    Do you not feel even a little ashamed about what you're saying, antiskeptic?

    The man lived and died without the god you can't distinguish from reality. Didn't need him, at any point. He's not even a week dead


    He's not dead. Not in the way you mean.

    I don't know (nor do you) whether he died without God or not.



    and you're claiming a man you know bugger all about by your own admission probably didn't mean it.

    Didn't mean what? I'm looking at a man I know something about and then saw interviewed and giving specific answers to specific questions.


  • Moderators Posts: 51,893 ✭✭✭✭Delirium


    He's not dead. Not in the way you I mean.

    I don't know (nor do you) whether he died without God or not.

    FYP

    If you can read this, you're too close!



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,491 ✭✭✭Yahew


    Fear, I imagine.

    A house of straw on a summers day is a fine thing. It's when the storm approaches that you begin to wonder if the dwelling you've constructed will be fit for use.

    I have seen surveys where the non-believers were the most relaxed in death. Since you admit that you cant know what God considers a Christian, you should be more worried, surely? How do you know you are saved, and the problem with not being saved is eternal damnation, not eternal rest.

    It would be arrogant to assume you know the mind of God, so you can only reasonably assume that the probability is you are doomed.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    King Mob wrote: »
    So my point stands and everything you wrote in between was yet more of you sophistry ,,,

    Do not pass GO, do not collect £200.

    :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 25,727 ✭✭✭✭King Mob


    Do not pass GO, do not collect £200.

    :rolleyes:
    Whoops, my bad, I thought you might be able to defend your offensive, idiotic points.

    But I think you did a great job of showing just how horrible Christian beliefs can get.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    robindch wrote: »
    1. Hitchens could not skewer any deity, since no deity was never brave enough to go up against him in public. On the contrary, Hitch was brilliant at showing deistic propaganda for the rubbish it is and was able consistently to pwn religious cheerleaders.

    a.k.a skewering a deity.

    2. If you've never read him or even seen much of him, I'd be intrigued to know exactly how you know he's "theological illiterate" :confused:


    If at this point in his life he wasn't aware of that most basic of Christian claims then illiterate (in that system) he most certainly was. Theological literacy stems from root ideas. If the root isn't miscomprehended then the literacy cannot grow.

    One would have to wonder how someone of that age managed to maintain a faulty understanding for as long as he did.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Yahew wrote: »
    I have seen surveys where the non-believers were the most relaxed in death.

    Yet there are no atheists in foxholes? :)

    I wonder how they manage to survey that since these days, folk are frequently drugged up to the eyeballs during their final descent.


    Since you admit that you cant know what God considers a Christian you should be more worried, surely? How do you know you are saved, and the problem with not being saved is eternal damnation, not eternal rest.

    It would be arrogant to assume you know the mind of God, so you can only reasonably assume that the probability is you are doomed.

    I said that the only Christian was one as defined by God - not men. I can know what that definition is since I can know God. But since I (nor anybody else) can't know in every individuals case whether they meet that definition or not I can't broad brushstroke like Dades does.


    I can say my mam is a Christian (because I know she meets the definition) and can say that my sisters likely aren't (because I know they don't appear meet the definition at this moment). I can't comment on the Philippines since I don't know the population there./


  • Registered Users Posts: 23 anushka


    This is such sad news, that goes without saying. But, it doesn't do to dwell on his death. Instead, remember his fine life. So, tonight, I'll be pouring a nice glass of Johnnie Walker Black Label, and watching YouTube's fine selection of Hitchslap compillations to relive that ferocious wit and intellect.

    yes, lets celebrate his life.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,681 ✭✭✭Standman


    It would appear not. Sin is in our constitution. I wouldn't conflate God wiping out humanity with God sending all that humanity to hell though.


    Everyone dies Dades. God kills us all ultimately.






    I don't recognize "Christian enough". It's Christian or not Christian. No in betweens.

    Again, I'd point out everyone dying at some point. That a group happen to die in one place at one time is no different ultimately than the a multitude more who died in that same time but were scattered over the globe.

    You're making a big deal about death focused at a location. I can't say I see the significance of it given "death at work all the time everywhere".





    Adam the head of mankind. The head fell, all under his dominion fell. I wouldn't say God kills on a whim. I'd say that he kills when his purpose for giving life to the individual has been met.

    Remember, my viewpoint is that this life is a precursor to an eternal event. If I see the second half I don't get as worked up as someone who thinks the first half is the whole game.




    The inherent guilt of humanity isn't a problem for the saved. And so isn't a terminal problem. It's only part of the set up of options: whether you want to cling to that inherent guilt or not.

    The eternal realm will consist of a fixed humanity residing with God on a fixed earth. It's only the ones who insisted on retaining their brokenness that are thrown on the scrap heap.

    This flawed (rather, fallen) creation isn't at all as flawed as you suppose. It's perfectly suited for ascertaining your response to God's offer. And Hitchens. And mine. Once that's established, it can be rolled up and recreated as new.

    Regarding the sentences in bold, you say that god kills us all in the end once some purpose of his has been met. So it follows from that that god creates us with a specific purpose in mind for each and every person on the planet before we are even born. So what your god has done for the craic, is to create a world inhabited by people of different religions or none at all, kill them at some point in time and send the ones whose purpose it was to believe in him to heaven and all the others to hell. Perhaps the purpose of babies born with fatal birth defects is to punish the parents for their sins? Where exactly does free will come into this?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,491 ✭✭✭Yahew


    Yet there are no atheists in foxholes? :)

    There are no believers at a funeral. In any case the stats are clear on this. Atheists are relaxed. Believers often are not. ( Most people probably have some skelton in their closet).

    I said that the only Christian was one as defined by God - not men. I can know what that definition is since I can know God.

    I can say my mam is a Christian (because I know she meets the definition)

    Presumably you meant to say you can't know what that definition is since you can't know God. If so, how do you know your mam is a Christian, that your sisters aren't, and the Phillipines - mostly Catholic - probably isn't. They think they are.

    Unless God told you, you are deciding who is Christian and who isn't based on a series of man made rules. These man made rules will get you and a few members of your sect into heaven, and nobody else,


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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,411 ✭✭✭oceanclub


    Yahew wrote: »
    I have seen surveys where the non-believers were the most relaxed in death.

    Weirdly, I'm far more sanguine about death now than I was when a child and religious, even thought I'm far nearer it now than I was then.

    P.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    Yet there are no atheists in foxholes? :)

    So you keep telling yourself.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,491 ✭✭✭Yahew


    oceanclub wrote: »
    Weirdly, I'm far more sanguine about death now than I was when a child and religious, even thought I'm far nearer it now than I was then.

    P.

    The reason is that genuine believers genuinely believe in God, and therefore damnation. For certain protestant denominations in particular, good works are not sufficient for salvation, but they are necessary - the elect would do good works because they are elect, other people might do good works but are unelect.

    However, the problem is knowing if you are elect or not. Since going against God's law is an symptom of not being Elect, and that can be internal thought, or private acts, the believer has to be nervous on his death bed, unless he really thinks he knows the mind of God, or has lived a perfect life. Since nobody has lived such a life, heoretically every believer should be terrified or, and certain of going to, hell.

    ( Catholics have it easier with confession).


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Yahew wrote: »
    There are no believers at a funeral.

    Not many at Catholic ones, true. But then again, Catholicism is a largely cultural affair in this country.

    I've been at a view believers funerals and they certainly are different

    In any case the stats are clear on this. Atheists are relaxed. Believers often are not. ( Most people probably have some skelton in their closet).

    Anyone can be relaxed about dying when they're not face-to-face with it. And when they are face to face with it they're often drugged up
    so that no one can tell what they're feeling.



    Presumably you meant to say you can't know what that definition is since you can't know God.

    You presume in error. Of course I can know God. What's stopping me knowing him? Or more correctly, what's stopping him revealing himself to me?

    Unless God told you, you are deciding who is Christian and who isn't based on a series of man made rules. These man made rules will get you and a few members of your sect into heaven, and nobody else,

    According to those rules, even folk who've never heard of him have an opportunity to go to heaven. So I couldn't comment on precise numbers


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Galvasean wrote: »
    So you keep telling yourself.

    I'm sure they turn back into atheists when the shelling stops..


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    I'm sure they turn back into atheists when the shelling stops..

    Give some of these guys a few emails. You'd never know you might learn something.
    http://www.militaryatheists.org/expaif.html

    Or you can dismiss them and presume to know everything about them as you have done with Hitchens already.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 2,491 ✭✭✭Yahew


    Not many at Catholic ones, true. But then again, Catholicism is a largely cultural affair in this country.

    I've been at a view believers funerals and they certainly are different

    Everybody is delighted at those funerals then. The dead man is in heaven, and there is much joy! and laughter! A realisation that we will all be joining him a a tiny spec of time relative to eternity. Its like a child's birthday party?


    You presume in error. Of course I can know God. What's stopping me knowing him? Or more correctly, what's stopping him revealing himself to me?

    Just you, or through some book, or some interpretation of a book read differently by a different sect?

    According to those rules, even folk who've never heard of him have an opportunity to go to heaven. So I couldn't comment on precise numbers

    A lot less than 1% I imagine. However, you are saved, so good for you.

    ( Except the sect down the road, the one which broke away ten years ago, thinks your sect is all damned, and God is revealing that to them too, using the same revealed literature).

    If I were Christian I'd go with most mainline Catholics and Protestants being saved, otherwise Jesus popped down in the first century to save nobody until the Protestant revolution, and very few then. Seems a bit unlikely.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,681 ✭✭✭Standman


    Yet there are no atheists in foxholes? :)
    /

    That sentence really annoys me. It comes across as so arrogant like saying that a religious person who cries at a funeral mustn't really believe in an afterlife.

    Was watching touching the void a while back and this really stood out for me:

    '"I was totally convinced I was on my own, that no one was coming to get me. I was brought up as a devout Catholic. I'd long since stopped believing in God. I always wondered if things really hit the fan, whether I would, under pressure, turn round and say a few Hail Marys and say 'Get me out of here'. It never once occurred to me. It meant that I really don't believe and I really do think that when you die, you die, that's it, there's no afterlife." - Joe Simpson.

    He was stuck at the bottom of a deep crevasse in a glacier with a broken leg and no where to go but down into the abyss. Instead of lying there praying for a miracle he managed to save him self through absolutely amazing courage and determination.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    Nah, god saved him really because bible.


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  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 32,865 ✭✭✭✭MagicMarker


    Yahew wrote: »
    I have seen surveys where the non-believers were the most relaxed in death. Since you admit that you cant know what God considers a Christian, you should be more worried, surely? How do you know you are saved, and the problem with not being saved is eternal damnation, not eternal rest.

    It would be arrogant to assume you know the mind of God, so you can only reasonably assume that the probability is you are doomed.
    You're talking to a man who firmly believes he has been saved and therefore guaranteed a place in heaven.

    Save yourself the time and turn off the computer.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    Galvasean wrote: »
    Give some of these guys a few emails. You'd never know you might learn something.
    http://www.militaryatheists.org/expaif.html

    edit.

    Way of topic. Sorry.


  • Registered Users Posts: 296 ✭✭Arcus Arrow


    11.08
    I've never read him or even seen much of him but.....

    12.31
    Didn't mean what? I'm looking at a man I know something about and then saw interviewed and giving specific answers to specific questions.

    First you go off waffling about Christopher Hitchens while claiming you’ve never read or seen much of him. Then, little more than an hour later, you try to claim almost the opposite in order to justify more ignorance based projections.


    Religious belief is ignorance given confidence. Because organised religion is founded on lies it’s adaptable.

    Religion poisons everything as Hitchens said. In the believer it stiches together confusions to where the follower is convinced that that condition then represents cohesion. It has adults confusing their own language with statements like “I was born….again” and feeling sorry for those who have (in the believers confused mind) only been born “once”. Evangelical maternity wards must be mad places: how did the birth go? Really bad! Not to worry have another go at it and if that’s not great sure we can go again..

    That’s why Christopher Hitchens was so successful a debater: he surgically cut through the stitching and laid bare the confusions of religious belief. It’s why so many believers across the internet will try to attach themselves like parasites to threads dedicated to reflecting on the fact he’s just died of cancer. It comes from the underlying insecurity of not really being 100% sure of all this god thing bollocks they’ve been sucked into.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 17,371 ✭✭✭✭Zillah


    Would that the Hitch had lived to see Dear Leader perish!

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-16239693


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    I'm sure they turn back into atheists when the shelling stops..
    I love the almost overwhelming arrogance of the believer. It used to annoy me until I worked out it isn't really arrogance and it is in fact something to be pitied

    The thing I love the most about this arrogance is it is simply an indication of a personality defect. Your typical arrogant believer that spouts the type of sh1t above would seem to have issues that he feels he is unable to fix himself. He cannot get through life without the crutch that is his religion. He also fears death and in order to be able to function in our modern world has to cling to the hope that there is something after death.

    This type of believer also thinks that other people have the same problem as him; that god shaped hole in their life, that lack of purpose. As people that don't need the crutch of religion, that don't fear death, that are happy to not know all the answers, but won't stop looking for them, we should pity these people. Whilst they don't see it, their world is a horrible place full of fear and hatred.

    I pity the believer, especially the apparently arrogant ones.

    MrP


  • Registered Users Posts: 296 ✭✭Arcus Arrow


    edit.

    Way of topic. Sorry.

    Christopher Hitchens liked a good joke especially when it poked fun at the ridiculous beliefs of the followers of organised religion.

    Why don't you tell everybody about your god thing, master of the universe, controller and creator of a billion billions stars, gatekeeper of the eternal post death destination of those it saved for boredom central, designer of every living cell in the universe, emperor of all human activity who.....took time out of it's unimaginably busy schedule to help you.... find your motorbike gloves.

    Christopher Hitchens uncovered the arrogant buffoons that christian believers make of themselves spouting opinions that others have convinced them of. He is no more but the damage to superstition he did while he lived won't stop with his death.


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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,333 ✭✭✭RichieC


    There will be claims that the Hitch had a deathbed conversion almost certainly..

    not sure if it was hitch or dawkins that said. they'll have a recorder with them at the end. a fine idea.

    Christians will lie through their teeth to promote their cults.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,788 ✭✭✭MrPudding


    RichieC wrote: »
    There will be claims that the Hitch had a deathbed conversion almost certainly..

    not sure if it was hitch or dawkins that said. they'll have a recorder with them at the end. a fine idea.

    Christians will lie through their teeth to promote their cults.
    I think it was Dawkins that said he could not say he would not convert on his deathbed. Not because of a moment of clarity but simply through fear or some abnormal functioning of the brain as it dies.

    I find that fact that theists think that people terrified out of their wits as they die "finding god" somehow validated their belief to be somewhat ridiculous. It is to be likened to a torture victim, having had his finger nails pulled out, his fingers broken and electrodes attached t his testicles declaring his undying love for the tyrant that ordered him tortured. Nothing to be proud of and certainly no indication of the rightness of loving the tyrant.

    MrP


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 25,558 Mod ✭✭✭✭Dades


    Save yourself the time and turn off the computer.
    I'm going to attempt to follow this advice, though I have to leave my computer on, and also read all the replies. :pac:

    I should never have stuck my head down the rabbit hole and entered the world of nonsense and gobbledegook.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,421 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    a.k.a skewering a deity.
    If your deity had been brave enough to show up, perhaps there could have been a debate. Unfortunately, it wasn't (so much for omnipotence!) :)
    If at this point in his life he wasn't aware of that most basic of Christian claims then illiterate (in that system) he most certainly was.
    Firstly, Hitch knew christian dogma as well as most atheists do, and considerably better than most christians. That's why he was trounced religious cheerleaders so regularly -- because he knew it better than they did.

    Secondly, and to ask you again, since you never read any Hitchens and seem to have little idea of what he said, I'm fascinated as to why you think you understand anything about his point of view. Is this another faith-based position?

    Anyhow, would you like to clarify this or would you like to post some more paragraphs of meaningless nonsense?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,747 ✭✭✭fisgon


    he had turned around to face this insurmountable opponent ... and shivered in the face of it. Never having developed the tools of humilty or doubt or deep self-reflection (at least they were not on show here) all Hitch could do was approach certain death with the same defiance that had proved so successful in the past.

    Wow, talk about seeing things the way you want them to be, rather than the way they are. I suppose that this particular skill is a prerequisite for a religious believer, and so you obviously have practice at it.

    The idea that he wasn't self-reflective in this interview is almost laughable. Did you actually watch it? Do you understand the English language? That's pretty much all he was, reflective, and honest.
    I think he knew how hollow his stance was but, after a lifetimes investment in the proudful polemic, couldn't bring himself to admit it.

    Again, talk about refusing to engage with the reality of the interview and instead making up a version of it that you would be comfortable with. This comment is actually very instructive about this kind of cognitive dissonance that people go through when their beliefs are questioned. They take the evidence that is right before their eyes, ignore it and instead change it to suit their own position and belief system.

    If you think that Hitch knew how hollow his stance was you are delusional. (though in fairness, given your other posts here, delusions are certainly part of the package in some shape or form). There was nothing unsure about him, reflective, yes, but unshaken in his positions. I saw a kind of calmness there, amid the understandable fear of dying, which he admitted.

    In fact, that 27 or so minutes was one of the most profound things I have seen in a long time. An atheist faces his death, as we all have to.


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