Philosophy
Widely considered to be one of the Four Horsemen of Atheism, Christopher Hitchens is an intellectual hero to many agnostics, skeptics and nonbelievers. I greatly admire the man's intelligence, erudition, candor, humor and eloquence, but I have to admit that I don't find his arguments against the existence of God to be very persuasive.
Hitchens, in my estimation, suffers from exactly the same kind of logical flaw that many believers do: his nonbelief seems to be based more on his desire for God not to exist (because God is, in his opinion, the ultimate arbitrary dictator who can violate our innermost privacy and convict us of thought-crimes) than on sound ontological or epistemic arguments. Believers, of course, make the same mistake of concluding that because they want God to exist, he actually does. But wishful thinking says more about the wisher than the wish, either way.
Where I do think Hitchens has made substantial contributions is on his critique of religion, religious morality and the religious instinct. It's his moral and historical arguments, and not any ontological claims, where I think he has a lot of interesting things to say. And if nothing else, he has that rare gift of helping us to think about many ideas, that we tend to take for granted, from refreshingly and interesting new angles, as the following excerpts show:
Cheers, Hitch!
- Bullshit Or Not: Hitchens Edition
There's an old sketch film called Amazon Women on the Moon and one of the bits is a parody of the old Leonard Nimoy show, "In Search Of..." called, "Bullshit or Not?" with the tagline "Bullshit or not? You decide." So I've stolen it for what is...
- The Fact That We Didn't Find Any Means They Probably Were There
David Corn on Christopher Hitchens: "When he did address the issue of the absent WMDs in Iraq, he took a strange turn. 'Doesn't anything ever strike you as odd," he said, "about the figure of zero for [WMD] deposits found in Iraq? ... Isn't...
- Christopher Hitchens & Tony Blair Debate On Religion
In a civilized and thought-provoking debate that took place just this past week in Toronto, former British Prime Minister and recent Catholic convert Tony Blair defended the motion that religion is a force for good in the world. Opposing the motion with...
- Stephen Fry - The Importance Of Philosophy And Unbelief
While I'm somewhat suspicious of actors--always pretending to be someone else :), I do tend to admire the good ones for their ability to convey and explore the spectrum of human possibilities. Still, they're not usually the first group to whom...
- Is Atheism The New Fundamentalism?
Atheists have been around for a long time, but until recently, they usually tended to keep their free-thinking disbelief to themselves, both because they considered their opinion a personal matter and out of politeness for believers. The rise of increasingly...
Philosophy
Tribute to Christopher Hitchens
Hitchens, in my estimation, suffers from exactly the same kind of logical flaw that many believers do: his nonbelief seems to be based more on his desire for God not to exist (because God is, in his opinion, the ultimate arbitrary dictator who can violate our innermost privacy and convict us of thought-crimes) than on sound ontological or epistemic arguments. Believers, of course, make the same mistake of concluding that because they want God to exist, he actually does. But wishful thinking says more about the wisher than the wish, either way.
Where I do think Hitchens has made substantial contributions is on his critique of religion, religious morality and the religious instinct. It's his moral and historical arguments, and not any ontological claims, where I think he has a lot of interesting things to say. And if nothing else, he has that rare gift of helping us to think about many ideas, that we tend to take for granted, from refreshingly and interesting new angles, as the following excerpts show:
Cheers, Hitch!
- Bullshit Or Not: Hitchens Edition
There's an old sketch film called Amazon Women on the Moon and one of the bits is a parody of the old Leonard Nimoy show, "In Search Of..." called, "Bullshit or Not?" with the tagline "Bullshit or not? You decide." So I've stolen it for what is...
- The Fact That We Didn't Find Any Means They Probably Were There
David Corn on Christopher Hitchens: "When he did address the issue of the absent WMDs in Iraq, he took a strange turn. 'Doesn't anything ever strike you as odd," he said, "about the figure of zero for [WMD] deposits found in Iraq? ... Isn't...
- Christopher Hitchens & Tony Blair Debate On Religion
In a civilized and thought-provoking debate that took place just this past week in Toronto, former British Prime Minister and recent Catholic convert Tony Blair defended the motion that religion is a force for good in the world. Opposing the motion with...
- Stephen Fry - The Importance Of Philosophy And Unbelief
While I'm somewhat suspicious of actors--always pretending to be someone else :), I do tend to admire the good ones for their ability to convey and explore the spectrum of human possibilities. Still, they're not usually the first group to whom...
- Is Atheism The New Fundamentalism?
Atheists have been around for a long time, but until recently, they usually tended to keep their free-thinking disbelief to themselves, both because they considered their opinion a personal matter and out of politeness for believers. The rise of increasingly...