Basically, what Hitchens was proposing is genocide. Or, at least, wholesale execution of the population of the Moslem world until they are sufficiently cowed and frightened and depleted that they are unable to resist us in any way, ever again.
At length:
The last talk is the one everyone is going to be talking about for some time to come: Christopher Hitchens at his eloquent, acerbic best and his eloquent, acerbic worst. He got a standing ovation when he was introduced, and he should have stopped there, because the applause got thinner and thinner as the talk progressed, and by the end, people were walking out on him.
The talk began excellently. He gave some of the arguments from his book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and he had me cheering at his aggressive dismissal of the foolishness of religion. It was not, however, a great talk — he’d have a great couple of paragraphs of red meat that would then fade away into an unfinished anecdote…and then he’d start another one. It was clearly an exhibition of punctuated rhetoric.
Ah, but then at the end — he seemed uncertain about the time allotted and how much time he was using, furthering the impression that he was just making some unorganized, off-the-cuff remarks — he asked if we shouldn’t break for questions, and then suggested that he “bang on”, and when he got signs of approval, said he was going to say a few things to piss us off. And that he did.
Ouch.
Then it was Hitchens at his most bellicose. He told us what the most serious threat to the West was (and you know this line already): it was Islam. Then he accused the audience of being soft on Islam, of being the kind of vague atheists who refuse to see the threat for what it was, a clash of civilizations, and of being too weak to do what was necessary, which was to spill blood to defeat the enemy. Along the way he told us who his choice for president was right now — Rudy Giuliani — and that Obama was a fool, Clinton was a pandering closet fundamentalist, and that he was less than thrilled about all the support among the FFRF for the Democratic party. We cannot afford to allow the Iranian theocracy to arm itself with nuclear weapons (something I entirely sympathize with), and that the only solution is to go in there with bombs and marines and blow it all up. The way to win the war is to kill so many Moslems that they begin to question whether they can bear the mounting casualties.
It was simplistic us-vs.-them thinking at its worst, and the only solution he had to offer was death and destruction of the enemy.
This was made even more clear in the Q&A;. He was asked to consider the possibility that bombing and killing was only going to accomplish an increase in the number of people opposing us. Hitchens accused the questioner of being incredibly stupid (the question was not well-phrased, I’ll agree, but it was clear what he meant), and said that it was obvious that every Moslem you kill means there is one less Moslem to fight you … which is only true if you assume that every Moslem already wants to kill Americans and is armed and willing to do so. I think that what is obvious is that most Moslems are primarily interested in living a life of contentment with their families and their work, and that an America committed to slaughter is a tactic that will only convince more of them to join in opposition to us.
Basically, what Hitchens was proposing is genocide. Or, at least, wholesale execution of the population of the Moslem world until they are sufficiently cowed and frightened and depleted that they are unable to resist us in any way, ever again.
This is insane. I entirely agree that we are looking at a clash of civilizations, that there are huge incompatibilities between different parts of the world, and that we face years and years of all kinds of conflict between us, with no easy resolution. However, one can only resolve deep ideological conflicts by the extermination of one side in video games and cartoons. It’s not going to work in the real world. We can’t simply murder enough Moslems to weaken them into irrelevance, and even if we could, that’s not the kind of culture to which I want to belong.
A clash of whole civilizations is a war of ideas. The way we can ‘conquer’ is on the cultural and economic level: the West should not invade and destroy, but should instead set an example, lead with strength, and be the civilization that every rational citizen of the other side wants to emulate. Yes, there will be wars and skirmishes, because not everyone on either side is rational, but the bloodshed isn’t the purpose. Hitchens would make it the raison d’etre of the whole Western effort.
This whole last third of his talk had me concerned about the first part. He had just told us in strong terms about the failures of religion and its detrimental effect on our culture, and now he was explaining to us how the solution in the Middle East was to simply kill everyone who disagreed with you.
This whole last third of his talk had me concerned about the first part. He had just told us in strong terms about the failures of religion and its detrimental effect on our culture, and now he was explaining to us how the solution in the Middle East was to simply kill everyone who disagreed with you.
What an idiot.
Hopefully he’ll never use the common athiest mantra “Religion is responsible for all the bloodshed in the world, so athiesm is better”.
Nothing new about an atheist proposing genocide as the solution. The real problem is his audience thinks their brand of atheism won’t bring the same appalling results that consistent atheism always brings.
If there is no God, what’s wrong with one lot of protoplasm bags wiping out another? Hitchens is consistent for once. Not mental. It’s his audience that’s mental.
Where Hitchens IS mental, is pontificating about morality of any sort. He has no basis for it. He debated with Douglas Wilson on ChristianityToday.com recently, and Doug rightly pointed out that if there is no God, the significance of their debate was no more than that of two cans of pop shook up and fizzing over.
If you want more, go to www.dougwils.com and search Hitchens.
Wilson is brilliant and witty. He wrote a reply to Sam Harris’ book Letter to a Christian Nation called Letter from a Christian Citizen which I recommend.
[from a review of the book]
“Wilson’s argument is pretty much this: Christianity at least has a basis for ethics; atheism doesn’t even have that. In the athiestic worldview, rationality is simply certain chemical processes arbitrarily declared to be “sense.” On this basis, how can anything possibly make any difference? As Wilson wrote elsewhere to another atheist [Hitchens, I think], “Why should anyone listen to your jeremiads against weirdbeards in the Middle East or fundamentalist Baptists from Virginia like Falwell? On your terms, you are just a random collection of protoplasm, noisier than most, but no more authoritative than any - which is to say, not at all...” ...For the atheists to argue the way they do, that there is morality and things like “good” and “evil,” they must steal wood from the Christian’s woodpile in order to do so. They have to unconsciously assume that a Christian view of the world (order, meaning, right and wrong) exists in order to consciously deny it. Not a molehill I’d want to defend.”
C Hitchens’ author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything has, unbeknown to himself, poisoned his own mind. What he fails to understand is that atheism is a religion too. He is only living up to the title and contents of his book. Irony plus!!!
It would be helpful to have a transcript of Hitchens’ talk. I am reluctant to join in the general condemnation of him without knowing the actual words he used. Can anyone help?
a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; “he lost his faith but not his morality”
an institution to express belief in a divine power; “he was raised in the Baptist religion”; “a member of his own faith contradicted him”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally held by a human community, involving adherence to codified beliefs and rituals and study of ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion
And I cant see how an atheist (at least under these definitions) can possibly be described as ‘religious’. Conversely a further google reveals:
Definitions of atheism on the Web:
the doctrine or belief that there is no God
a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Atheism entails the absence of belief in the existence of God or other deities.Absence of belief:*"Atheists are people who do not believe in a god or gods (or other immaterial beings), or who believe that these concepts are not meaningful. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
The belief that God does not exist.
library.thinkquest.org/25416/gloss.htm
...which pretty much sums it up. It is simply an absence of belief in God/s. Which is why if you if you attend an atheist meeting (I did once) you are likely to meet no more than half a dozen people of utterly disparate views - where atheism may be the only thing they have in common. I have atheist friends/acquaintances who are libertarians, communists, hedonists, authoritarian, compassionate, selfish, left-wing, right-wing or completely without wings.
So Angela, I’m not sure what you mean.
That my particular epistemology entails a level of assumption? Undoubtedly - but I hardly consider that religious.
Some further elucidation would be greatly appreciated (primarily because I always enjoy our engagements and it has been far too long. :-) )
As to the OP; I think Alan has identified an important point - one should always be reluctant to criticize someone on the basis of a third-party commentary. However, given some of Christopher’s previous commentaries, it does not sound particularly far-fetched; especially if he was speaking off the cuff.
The propensity of some (especially certain Americans) to divide the World into ‘White Hats’ and ‘Black Hats’ is a disturbing phenomena - particularly in the current climate.
Trust you to come up with that; although I do have some trouble with the devotion part.
I adhere to the view that there is only a ‘physical’ world, but I am hardly devoted to it. It is not a principle around which I organize my life - however I will concede that a recognition of my mortality does influence my decisions (as I think it does everyone’s)
It just seems that some Christians (and I’m not for a moment suggesting that you or Angela necessarily fall into this category) write off ‘Atheism’ as just another religion; when it is in fact something else - something different.
A recognition possibly, that humans crave understanding and meaning - but that we began from a position of complete ignorance; and with science we have a mechanism which enables us to unravel a significant portion of life’s mysteries - to the point where many of us no longer have any great fear of the unknown; or require something further to give our life meaning.
The ‘new atheists’ like Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens, also claim that science plus reason can take society to the next level. They believe that man was originally an animal savage, but eventually developed voluntary social contracts (government, law, manners, etc.) for the good of all.
The problem is that atheism gives no divine basis for government, so those who entered the ‘social contracts’ can also uncreate them whenever desired. To sustain itself, the established government, without a divine basis for law, becomes totalitarian. Political atheism can only sustain itself by force, since it recognises no right but might (natural selection). And militarisation is also a necessary result, for on atheistic grounds civil rule can’t sustain itself for a moment without an armed force sufficient to overawe or crush the party or parties in permanent conspiracies against it.
The Bible states that government is God given, and has existed since the first man, the federal head of our race. Man has never existed without government. It is from above. Even ungodly leaders are put in place by God for His ultimate purposes (ie. Nebuchadnezzar, etc.). Government/law is not something WE made. Denying its divine origin makes it optional, which leads to either tyranny or anarchy.
The end result of political atheism is always untold bloodshed. The past century is testimony to the fruit of this thinking. Hitchens is not mental, just a consistent atheist making his way to the logical conclusions of his misplaced faith.
Atheism is the illegitimate son of Christianity. It assumes the fruits of Christianity can be maintained without the tree. It deifies science and reason instead. But much of our ‘science’ is based on false assumptions, and the ‘reason’ that we deify is the arbitrary and corruptible thinking of a race of rebels.
Once stripped of its Christian props and borrowed moral capital, atheism boils down to old-fashioned autonomy and thus functions as social cancer. The use of science and reason beyond their given boundaries (as a replacement for Scripture) is killing western culture.
[TANGENT] We seem to have strayed a little off topic here (in which I am undoubtedly complicit) but although not wishing to flog a ‘dead...’(sic), can I just suggest that this a perfect example ; whils’t many of you may be interested in my comments/ defence of this issue, I am also aware that many of you are probably not.
This is after all ‘The Sydney Anglicans’’ website, where I am sure most of you come for spiritual enrichment as well as vibrant discussion - and a challenge to those views is hardly appropriate when you open up one of the main forums (although many of you obviously enjoy these discussions as do I) - some of you may compare it to watching a program on surgery whilst eating dinner!
Now if such discussions were corralled in a place such as DH, those who wish could come down and participate, and everyone else could be untrammelled in the discussions of their Faith.
No matter how many years I may be here, I will always consider myself a ‘guest’ rather than a member - that is simply the nature of our engagement - but I enjoy and value my time here; and would like to continue to contribute especially with those who have an interest in / or would like a better understanding of - what an atheist thinks.
And even if my primary purview were to be DH, it would not mean that I would no longer contribute on the other boards - simply that most of my more contentious arguments (such as AFL is the only ‘true’ football!) would be limited to the abode of deceased equines.
@Rob, Huh? We haven’t had any 128 page, 1900+ response discussions on atheism in the last six months, so knock yourself out! :)
In any case, Rob what do you make of the (quite literally!) militant atheism Hitchens was apparently expousing? I’m just interested in your reaction, not suggesting your atheism means you therefore must think alike, much like my Christianity doesn’t mean I agree with any Christians in the folds of the war-mongering neocons in the US, for instance :)
Then it was Hitchens at his most bellicose. He told us what the most serious threat to the West was (and you know this line already): it was Islam. Then he accused the audience of being soft on Islam, of being the kind of vague atheists who refuse to see the threat for what it was, a clash of civilizations, and of being too weak to do what was necessary, which was to spill blood to defeat the enemy.
Just for a moment, let’s entertain Hitchens is right, in that Islam is one of many threats (eg, affluence has already and continues to wrecked havoc on the West). In the face of militant Islam or lsamists, what is to be the Christian response? We know Hitchens response but what is ours?
Rob,
Everything that Michael wrote, which was so eloquent. sigh
Just for a moment, let’s entertain Hitchens is right, in that Islam is one of many threats (eg, affluence has already and continues to wrecked havoc on the West). In the face of militant Islam or lsamists, what is to be the Christian response? We know Hitchens response but what is ours?
Reaching out with the love of Christ through the gospel. More missionaries!!
Thank you your post. I know to some, your answer may sound simplistic, naive and foolish beyond measure. Let’s also remember prayer, faithful unceasing prayer.
@Rob, Huh? We haven’t had any 128 page, 1900+ response discussions on atheism in the last six months, so knock yourself out! :)
Has it ever occurred to you that however much I might like to, I deliberately dont start up ardently non-Christian threads on these boards because they are not appropriate - but that they might be acceptable if they were isolated in a particular forum?
Do you remember the one that was originally titled ‘God does not exist’: the
thread that I eventually refused to post on unless the title was changed, despite people asking me questions because I (does anyone else see the irony) found it offensive that everytime someone posted, it got bumped back up the top - confronting everyone who so much as opened the forum?
Did you read my last post? This is ‘The Sydney Anglicans’’ Forum: not a free-for-all:
Something I respect
You may not mind my contributions - but I think a lot of the people who come here do ( a point which I think Jeremy understands)
So, whilst you may find nothing disturbing in what follows; just bear in mind that others may ( and which they would be spared - but you could still participate in, if it were in DH)
Michael:
You are far too kind; although I do hope you retain some of those sentiments even after you have read this; and Angela, since you are in agreement.
The Bible states that government is God given, and has existed since the first man, the federal head of our race. Man has never existed without government. It is from above. Even ungodly leaders are put in place by God for His ultimate purposes (ie. Nebuchadnezzar, etc.). Government/law is not something WE made. Denying its divine origin makes it optional, which leads to either tyranny or anarchy.
Now this leaves me utterly confused: If we have a tyranny, then it is because we have rejected God - Who in turn , decides whether or not we have a tyranny - Do we have any say? And God wrote the Australian Constitution? Funny, I didn’t see his signature when I last read it.
Political atheism can only sustain itself by force, since it recognises no right but might (natural selection).
On the contrary Michael, as ‘Game Theory’ has most eloquently demonstrated, co-operation is far superior to an exclusively competitive environment: Perhaps you could enlighten me on just what political/economic system Christianity espouses (and upon which all Christians are naturally agreed) and just how/where it has been implemented (at least the Muslims can point to Islamic Spain)
The end result of political atheism is always untold bloodshed.
Right: Which is why that most atheist of countries - Sweden - (where even the Christian Democrats admit that most of their members are non-believers) is such a haven of retribution and blood-letting! (???!!!*^%$#!??)
Hitchens is not mental, just a consistent atheist making his way to the logical conclusions of his misplaced faith.
Faith in what exactly? You’ll have to excuse me; I’m a bit slow.
Atheism is the illegitimate son of Christianity.
Huh? Socrates was an atheist and he was around more than 400 years before Jesus: I would suggest that as long as there has been superstition there have been those who refuse to conform to the propoganda.
Once stripped of its Christian props and borrowed moral capital, atheism boils down to old-fashioned autonomy and thus functions as social cancer.
No. After it’s been stripped down it is nothing more than it ever claimed to be: An absence of belief in God/ Gods. Morality came first: then people invented stories to justify it - that is what we learn from Natural Selection - and why almost identical ethical systems have arisen around the World in isolated societies with completely different superstitious underpinnings.
As to the OP: Islam (like Christianity) is not going to go away soon ( and to be honest, ‘Christian Evangelism’ is the last thing we need now!) - What we need is Engagement - simply talking to people of a different faith: How many Islamic friends do you have? (I , to my shame - only have 2). George W’s Presidency has been an unmitigated disaster - and has left the World far less secure than it has ever been at any point in my lifetime.
