A Comment on Christopher Hitchens

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Star Wars Memes Only
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In the Conversation with William Lane Craig and Bishop Barron thread I had mentioned that I was not fond of Hitchens' debates because at times "he substituted substance with flair." Macarthur challenged me to provide something specific.

A couple of months later I responded with the following:

Quote:

So I've spent the last month or so immersing myself in everything Hitchens. Read his memoir, watched several debates, reread parts of God is not Great, etc. I love his oratory style. I didn't intend to watch as much Hitchens as I have, but I seriously love his oratory style. I've watched stuff going back to the 80s with Bill Buckley, all the way to his last appearance in Houston with Dawkins. But I stand by my original criticism of him: there are times he substituted substance with flair. You asked for a specific example.

I think in the debate with Frank Turek on whether or not God exists, if Hitchens won he won it on charisma and wit rather than on the content of his words. Don't get me wrong, I think many of Turek's arguments fell flat, but overall on the content itself I think he did a better job than Hitchens did. Here is an excerpt from that debate that I think exemplifies what I'm talking about:



Hitchens adroitly dodges around Turek's question and in some ways overpowers him with his oratory skills, but he doesn't actually address the point. Personally, I would have loved a real answer. This particular subject came up over and over again in that debate, and every time Hitchens dodged it similarly. In my opinion there were some other points he did this with as well. And, from what I've seen, these aren't exceptions to the rule either. This is his debating style quite often. And while I'm extremely impressed with him as an orator, I cannot say I think he wins all of his debates, because at times the content is substituted with flair.

That was a month ago. I was hoping that Macarthur would comment, but he might have overlooked that thread, so I wanted to restate my thoughts here to see if I might grab his attention.
mesocosm
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Well he certainly did have flare.
fwheightsboy
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Christopher Hitchens was one of the great intellects of his generation. A prolific writer and sought after speaker, you never had to guess his position. His critique of the Catholic Church was epic. He thought Islam was unfounded and dangerous. He did not think that belief in religion that was based on supernatural hopefulness, talking snakes, pillars of salt, dead people rising, parting oceans, and other acts where the laws of nature are suspended (and always in favor of the believer) were a rational basis for belief.
DirtDiver
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Hitchens in in crass and witty way, dodges Turek's question completely while adding humor which makes his statements very attractive with those who are looking for a champion. Summerizing Turek's question in a different way:

Preface:
If there is no God, there are no moral absolutes.

Given your naturalistic view, how do you define good and evil without a moral standard? Which molecule is responsible for it?

Hitchens never answers and misrepresents his view by thinking that Turek is saying those without God are not capable of doing morally good things.
Martin Q. Blank
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Quote:

Given your naturalistic view, how do you define good and evil without a moral standard? Which molecule is responsible for it?
Define, but more importantly justify. (0:32)

He does answer: it hasn't been discovered yet. (3:30) i.e. he can't justify it, but maybe sometime in the future he will be able to (from a materialist point of view).
fwheightsboy
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I know right from wrong and act accordingly. Where do you get yours? What are the moral standards set in the Bible and who authored them? And please don't forget to justify and rationalize Bible approved slavery, rape, and murder.
DirtDiver
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I know right from wrong and act accordingly. Where do you get yours? What are the moral standards set in the Bible and who authored them? And please don't forget to justify and rationalize Bible approved slavery, rape, and murder
Martin you are right in using the word Justification. Fwh - how to you justify what's right and wrong? I believe that you and I both 'know' right and wrong because we were designed by God with a conscience. When you and I violate that conscience we experience, guilt and regret. When we find pleasure in doing what's wrong, we ignore God, makes excuses, blame others, justify our behaviour, and try to numb our conscience.

What was the nature of slaver in Biblical times?
Why did God allow it?
How was it different than kidnapping and abuse?
Does the bible record rapes occuring in history, does it promote or condemn it?
Murder: Given that one of the 10 commandments is, You shall not murder. How do you justify the Bible approve it?

The Bible records a history of the evil that humanity commits and the consequences for it but never supports evil. Murder and using a nation to Judge another nation are two different things.
Aggrad08
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Quote:



The Bible records a history of the evil that humanity commits and the consequences for it but never supports evil


That's just not true. Slavery, rape, and genocide are all condoned within the text.
DirtDiver
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Quote:

That's just not true. Slavery, rape, and genocide are all condoned within the text.
If God does not exist, how does one justify slavery, rape, and genocide as being evil?
Are you in favor of abortion? (This applies to our discussion)

Rape:
Duet: 22
23 "If there is a girl who is a virgin engaged to a man, and another man finds her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city and you shall stone them to death; the girl, because she did not cry out in the city, and the man, because he has violated his neighbor's wife. Thus you shall purge the evil from among you.

25 "But if in the field the man finds the girl who is engaged, and the man forces her and lies with her, then only the man who lies with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the girl; there is no sin in the girl worthy of death, for just as a man rises against his neighbor and murders him, so is this case. 27 When he found her in the field, the engaged girl cried out, but there was no one to save her.

Slavery:
5 But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife and my children; I will not go out as a free man,' 6 then his master shall bring him to God, then he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him permanently.

If one's only view of all slavery is evil, then hey must have an abolutle moral law of good and evil, and they must may have not recognized all of the forms of slavery throughout history. If all slavery is evil, how is it possible that a slave would love his master?

Genocide:
Is God arbitruary or does He give reasons for judging people in the OT? What's happening in those cases?
Is God committing murder by ending lives on Earth?
Rocag
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I've seen so many discussions where the Christians argue that without God there can't be an absolute standard by which we define good and evil. I think that's a debatable point, but even if it is true then so what? We are completely unable to prove that an absolute standard of good and evil exists in the first place and if you are going to argue that we can identify what is good and what is evil based on what the vast majority of people believe it be then you've just set your definition as something subjective.

So why do most people have similar morals? One word: empathy. Humans are social creatures and our species has spent it's entire existence living together in groups. The populations that cooperated more and fought within the group less were far more successful and likely to pass down their genes and it is undeniable that complex behaviors can be ingrained within animals and humans, not just learned. So we have this biological impulse to act in ways that benefit the group along with the intelligence and social awareness to be able to understand the consequences of our actions and how others might respond to them. Roll it up into a ball and what do you get? Morality.
Aggrad08
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You need to read more of your Bible. What does it say about non Jewish slaves and the treatment of the captured women. As for genocide, they dash the babies heads against the rocks, what crime are they being punished for.

And there is no objective morality even with God, you can only pretend at it. You blindly assert God says he agrees, which you have no objective way of demonstrating. And you have no answer for euthyphos dilemma.
Texaggie7nine
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This argument is simply an appeal to confirmation bias. It's no different than when I was debating atheists with the argument that if there were no god,then the love they have for their own children is nothing more than a trick by mother nature and evolution to get them to protect them and it has no special meaning.

You are just trying to get their emotions to overpower their logical processes and go with that which they find to be a more desirable truth.

Even if the fact of there being no god would mean that we have no objective morality or that love is no more special than some chemical processes in the brain, it does nothing to actually prove that a god exists.
7nine
Woody2006
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I think Hitchens had a tendency to disregard this question too often, but sometimes he would answer it by saying "we wouldn't have made it this far as a species if we didn't have this understanding of what's right and wrong".

Essentially, the concept of the golden rule is something that everyone understands (well almost everyone). It predates religion. The religious among us would argue this is evidence that God implanted the knowledge of right and wrong into each of us and that without God there is no way this understanding could exist. While Hitchens doesn't explain where it comes from, explaining that as a species we couldn't have progressed to where we are today without this knowledge is at least addressing it. It is an evolutionary byproduct of being a social species.

We see this same behavior in lower animals, albeit to a lesser degree. It would make sense that with a greater ability to reason and comprehend, that we as a species are more capable of empathy than other species.

Where this understanding of right and wrong came from may not be clear and observable, but that doesn't mean it requires a God to explain the existence of this phenomena.
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Macarthur
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Just now seeing this. I appreciate you posting because I haven't watched Hitch in a while.

I certainly haven't seen everything he's done and I suppose it stands to reason that as many times as he 'debated' folks, there were times when his points didn't come across as good as others.

But I'm not trying to be dense when I say that I think this video is a poor example. I think he answered the question. As others on this thread have already pointed out, this issue has been kicked around countless times and I think those that fall on the side of objective morality have an incredibly weak case.
Star Wars Memes Only
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To me Turek's question seemed to be what is the ontological basis for an atheist's morality. I was not able to extract an answer to that from Hitch's response. If I'm misunderstanding something, please help me out
Woody2006
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dargscisyhp said:

To me Turek's question seemed to be what is the ontological basis for an atheist's morality. I was not able to extract an answer to that from Hitch's response. If I'm misunderstanding something, please help me out
He answers in other debates that it is the golden rule. You don't need a God or religion or anyone dictating to you that you do right vs. wrong. It is simply enough to know how you would want to be treated in a specific situation and then treat others in that manner.
Star Wars Memes Only
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I don't know if that really answers the question or simply serves as a useful pragmatic rule, but that's probably a point of discussion for another thread. I was trying to point out an instance I thought Hitchens replaced substance with flair, which was the original challenge.
Woody2006
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dargscisyhp said:

I don't know if that really answers the question, or simply serves as a useful pragmatic rule, but that's probably a point of discussion for another thread. I was trying to point out an instance I thought Hitchens replaced substance with flair, which was the original challenge.
I think the bigger critique I would have of Hitchens was how utterly stubborn he was. He would not yield an inch in a debate about anything, no matter how unreasonable he came across.

I remember one debate where a handicapped man asked Hitchens what hope atheism could offer someone like him, and rather than show any compassion at all Hitchens got angry and essentially called the man weak for wanting hope.

The dude was a great orator and had some very interesting thoughts. He was also stubborn and *****ish to the point of being repulsive.
Star Wars Memes Only
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Yes, I've seen that one. That exchange was particularly anger-inducing.
Win At Life
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I disagree that the golden rule applies to atheists is self evident or even true. Without an external moral agent I would be inclined to do what benefits me the most. Sure, I might be nice to the ones I love and nice to others because I need something out of them, but otherwise I would crush you to get what I want. You might not. Good for you. But you can't apply your subjective atheistic morals to my atheist morals based on any atheistic moral absolutes. That's basically Tureck's point.
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Woody2006
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Win At Life said:

I disagree that the golden rule applies to atheists is self evident or even true. Without an external moral agent I would be inclined to do what benefits me the most. Sure, I might be nice to the ones I love and nice to others because I need something out of them, but otherwise I would crush you to get what I want. You might not. Good for you. But you can't apply your subjective atheistic morals to my atheist morals based on any atheistic moral absolutes. That's basically Tureck's point.
This is the common argument, but it's really just nonsense as Astro pointed out.

You can't escape your knowledge of what is right and wrong. Whether you choose to ignore the golden rule and be a selfish actor determines whether or not you're a good person. Maybe atheists don't behave because of the fear of eternal punishment, but the vast majority of them behave nevertheless. This isn't co-opting the culture Christians have created... this is simply how humans have evolved.
schmendeler
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Win At Life said:

I disagree that the golden rule applies to atheists is self evident or even true. Without an external moral agent I would be inclined to do what benefits me the most. Sure, I might be nice to the ones I love and nice to others because I need something out of them, but otherwise I would crush you to get what I want. You might not. Good for you. But you can't apply your subjective atheistic morals to my atheist morals based on any atheistic moral absolutes. That's basically Tureck's point.
that you think acting maliciously selfish would enable you to succeed without question is pretty short sighted, in my opinion.
Texaggie7nine
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AstroAg17 said:

If there is a god, the fact that he gave us tribalistics instincts is very confusing and seems malicious.

I feel this is one of the areas where evolution does a much better job than special creation at explaining our nature.
This is a conundrum created with the Tower of Babel story. Apparently when humans all work together and get along we try to supersede God because of how much we can accomplish working together, so God had to split up all the people into different languages so they would fight and not work together anymore.
7nine
Win At Life
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AstroAg17 said:

Win At Life said:

Without an external moral agent I would be inclined to do what benefits me the most.
If you were truly a rational actor this might be the case. But you're not, you have empathy and other instinctive reasons to take into account the needs of others, particularly others you relate to. And this empathetic state confers a fitness advantage over your proposed selfish state, so it won out.

Without an external moral agent you would be exactly as you are now, compassionate to an extent, but with extreme preference toward those you identify with.



You are mistaken about how I feel. I feel very little empathy for people. Much behavior you see from me is not driven by empathy, but by a belief that God tells me how to live and that I should strive to do that. Don't assume the way you "feel" is the same as me. Perhaps you have more empathy than me and act accordingly. Good for you. But that applies very little to me.

Actions by large populations always follow normal distributions, but I would move that median ever so slightly if I didn't believe in the Bible.
Woody2006
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Win At Life said:

AstroAg17 said:

Win At Life said:

Without an external moral agent I would be inclined to do what benefits me the most.
If you were truly a rational actor this might be the case. But you're not, you have empathy and other instinctive reasons to take into account the needs of others, particularly others you relate to. And this empathetic state confers a fitness advantage over your proposed selfish state, so it won out.

Without an external moral agent you would be exactly as you are now, compassionate to an extent, but with extreme preference toward those you identify with.



You are mistaken about how I feel. I feel very little empathy for people. Much behavior you see from me is not driven by empathy, but by a belief that God tells me how to live and that I should strive to do that. Don't assume the way you "feel" is the same as me. Perhaps you have more empathy than me and act accordingly. Good for you. But that applies very little to me.

Actions by large populations always follow normal distributions, but I would move that median ever so slightly if I didn't believe in the Bible.

If you're really a sociopath that only behaves because your book tells you to, then by all means... continue with that path.

For the rest of us, understanding how our actions affect other people is enough to make us behave. We all fail and act selfishly at times, but by and large I believe most people, religious or not, want to be good people and treat others as we would want to be treated.
schmendeler
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Win At Life said:

AstroAg17 said:

Win At Life said:

Without an external moral agent I would be inclined to do what benefits me the most.
If you were truly a rational actor this might be the case. But you're not, you have empathy and other instinctive reasons to take into account the needs of others, particularly others you relate to. And this empathetic state confers a fitness advantage over your proposed selfish state, so it won out.

Without an external moral agent you would be exactly as you are now, compassionate to an extent, but with extreme preference toward those you identify with.



You are mistaken about how I feel. I feel very little empathy for people. Much behavior you see from me is not driven by empathy, but by a belief that God tells me how to live and that I should strive to do that. Don't assume the way you "feel" is the same as me. Perhaps you have more empathy than me and act accordingly. Good for you. But that applies very little to me.

Actions by large populations always follow normal distributions, but I would move that median ever so slightly if I didn't believe in the Bible.


v
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schmendeler
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AstroAg17 said:

I absolutely thing selfishness is the optimal strategy, by definition even. Obviously doing what's best for you is best for you.


Would you consider sociopaths to be utilitizing the optimal strategy?
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schmendeler
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AstroAg17 said:

Maybe? Probably not, if they're not getting optimal results. If the goal is to maximize some aspect of your life, like money or happiness or even direct fitness, not caring about others should lead to a better return if done correctly. The optimal strategy may even involve doing things for others to benefit oneself.


That sounds like it's beginning to approach the argument about whether or not true altruism exists.
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schmendeler
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AstroAg17 said:

Right. I haven't considered that question much. I think that if you don't believe in something like agency or the soul, then the question is a bit nonsensical.

But does it matter if the altruism is true or selfish? I think that feeling good about helping others is a great thing. I can't imagine the world without it.


I agree about helping and doing kindnesses toward others.

But if we are only ever doing things for ultimately selfish reasons, then the discussion is kind of moot regarding being selfish or not.
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