Christopher Hitchens on the Catholic Church

[Scorch]

I find these arguments compelling and very well-argued, and am interested to hear peoples' thoughts on them.

[Frankie88]

http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=331095

UTFS

[Celsius]

He wants apologies from the Church from things that they have done hundreds of years ago? Then I want apologies from Great Britain for killing many of my ancestors, as well as apologies from Ayatollah for supporting people who kill my loved ones. No one wants, nor do they wish, to apologize for things they themselves havent done.

[Scorch]

He wants apologies from the Church from things that they have done hundreds of years ago? Then I want apologies from Great Britain for killing many of my ancestors, as well as apologies from Ayatollah for supporting people who kill my loved ones. No one wants, nor do they wish, to apologize for things they themselves havent done.

You miss the point. Watch the video rather than commenting and you will realise that the vast majority of the things he mentioned happened within the 1900s, and indeed within the last 50 years.

That being said, such an apparently divine and infallible Church which portrays itself as a moral guide should not have a laundry list of atrocities and disgusting actions to apologize for in the first place.

[Arch-hereticK]

He wants apologies from the Church from things that they have done hundreds of years ago? Then I want apologies from Great Britain for killing many of my ancestors, as well as apologies from Ayatollah for supporting people who kill my loved ones. No one wants, nor do they wish, to apologize for things they themselves havent done.

Apologies have to be made if the ideology is to be continued to be respected. A country does not have an absolutionist ideology and does not need to apologise for things done in the name of a different ideology.

Personally I hope they don't apologise and the world will see the hypocritical corrupting influence the catholic church has on the world.

[Teutonic Joe]

Personally I hope they don't apologise and the world will see the hypocritical corrupting influence the catholic church has on the world.

Sadly for you, John Paul II already went through most apologies.
1. For what happened to Galileo
2. For any involvement with the slave trade'
3. Violence used against Protestants during the Reformation
4. Injustices against women in their pursuit of women's rights
5. Catholics being inactive and not working against those who initiated the Holocaust

Heck, there is a wikipedia page only concerning his apologies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologi...e_John_Paul_II

The guy even apologized to the Patriarch of Constantinople for the sack of Constantinople....

[removeduser_487563287433]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbv...fry_shortfilms

Another chance to post this? I think so.

[Monarchist]

I am so sick of Christopher Hitchens. I wish he'd sod off and live on the moon, or something.

[Fiyenyaa]

I am so sick of Christopher Hitchens. I wish he'd sod off and live on the moon, or something.

I'd have thought you'd be kindred spirits from different positions, Monarchist - you both say what you mean with more than a little hyperbole and dry wit, and you don't care about sounding extreme. To put it another way - you are both blunt.
I've always thought he was pretty hilarious, to be honest. Having watched that debate, I seem to recall a huge sway away from the motion "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world" so that those in favour were a tiny minority by the end. Makes one so optimistic, doesn't it?

[Monarchist]

I'd have thought you'd be kindred spirits from different positions, Monarchist - you both say what you mean with more than a little hyperbole and dry wit, and you don't care about sounding extreme. To put it another way - you are both blunt.

Thank you, sir! I appreciate your candor. Of course, I don't like him because his blunt opinions are the opposite of mine. Why should I want so disagreeable a set of views to be bluntly and openly proposed? I want his beliefs to die out, not to floursh! Besides, he smokes endless cigarettes and seems to take a sip from his alcohol-filled glass every five minutes in interview. I can't abide a drinker.

I've always thought he was pretty hilarious, to be honest. Having watched that debate, I seem to recall a huge sway away from the motion "The Catholic Church is a force for good in the world" so that those in favour were a tiny minority by the end. Makes one so optimistic, doesn't it?

Well, it's really quite meaningless when four panelists tell us that Catholicism is pure evil.

[Fiyenyaa]

Thank you, sir! I appreciate your candor. Of course, I don't like him because his blunt opinions are the opposite of mine. Why should I want so disagreeable a set of views to be bluntly and openly proposed? I want his beliefs to die out, not to floursh! Besides, he smokes endless cigarettes and seems to take a sip from his alcohol-filled glass every five minutes in interview. I can't abide a drinker.

It's not Hitchens without a glass of scotch - just another reason to love him

Well, it's really quite meaningless when four panelists tell us that Catholicism is pure evil.

You are joking, right? The two pro-Catholic people may have been pathetic (I mean Anne Widecombe? Seriously?), but they certainly weren't all on the same side.

[Monarchist]

Didn't you say that the panel swayed in the other direction, away from the idea that the Church has been a force from good? Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant.

I admit that Widdecombe sounds a tad batty to be representing Papists.

[Fiyenyaa]

Didn't you say that the panel swayed in the other direction, away from the idea that the Church has been a force from good? Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant.

I admit that Widdecombe sounds a tad batty to be representing Papists.

If I implied the panel - I apologise - I meant the audience.

[Monarchist]

Ooh... well, who cares what a bunch of atheist yobbos think, anyway?

[SigniferOne]

The Hitchens debate on whether the Catholic Church is a force for good was so bad as to be almost depressing, because the Catholics representing it were pitiful in the extreme.

No atheist has been able to refute Dinesh D'Souza, however, and philosophers like William Lane Craig have been owning atheists for centuries:



A clip with Craig owning Hitchens:



And here's a tough-fought debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Hitchens, at which Hitchens ultimately ends up succumbing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-NduvegITQ

[Frankie88]

The Hitchens debate on whether the Catholic Church is a force for good was so bad as to be almost depressing, because the Catholics representing it were pitiful in the extreme.

No atheist has been able to refute Dinesh D'Souza, however, and philosophers like William Lane Craig have been owning atheists for centuries:



A clip with Craig owning Hitchens:



And here's a tough-fought debate between Dinesh D'Souza and Hitchens, at which Hitchens ultimately ends up succumbing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-NduvegITQ

I am no fan of Hitchins but how exactly is he getting owned in any of these video's including the ones with Dinish D'Souza?

[SigniferOne]

I am no fan of Hitchins but how exactly is he getting owned in any of these video's including the ones with Dinish D'Souza?

.. Ummm, did you even watch any of those debates? As an atheist have you ever thought that nothing even remotely reasonable could be said for Christianity? All of those videos explode that notion with a shatter.

For the D'Souza debate they hold evenly, pretty much at the top of their game, for the first half of the argument, but in the second half it starts going downhill for Hitchens.

I've not seen anything by D'Souza that makes me think of him as anything other than a mediocre thinker, in fact his statements like the one House just commented on make me want to describe him as intellectually flea-sized.

The same largely goes for Hitchens, by the way. He's a terrific public speaker and a skilled debater, and he's pretty experienced in religious debates, but his arguments are hardly bulletproof and his inability to answer questions concisely is by far his greatest weakness.

That's rich. I've never seen you make arguments that come even close to the approximation of Hitchens' force and persuasion. As far as I can see every atheist on this forum is flea-sized compared to Hitchens, and likewise many Christians would fail to come up to muster of D'Souza's acumen and historical knowledge. These are two giants here, and you don't get the chance to say that Hitchens' acumen is oh-so-much less than yours merely because he lost narrowly.

[Strelok]

That's rich. I've never seen you make arguments that come even close to the approximation of Hitchens' force and persuasion. As far as I can see every atheist on this forum is flea-sized compared to Hitchens, and likewise many Christians would fail to come up to muster of D'Souza's acumen and historical knowledge. These are two giants here, and you don't get the chance to say that Hitchens' acumen is oh-so-much less than yours merely because he lost narrowly.

I haven't heard an argument from them that hasn't been made from other people, or even in this very forum, I see little that is special about them, except that they have more publicity.

[Tankbuster]

That's rich. I've never seen you make arguments that come even close to the approximation of Hitchens' force and persuasion. As far as I can see every atheist on this forum is flea-sized compared to Hitchens, and likewise many Christians would fail to come up to muster of D'Souza's acumen and historical knowledge. These are two giants here, and you don't get the chance to say that Hitchens' acumen is oh-so-much less than yours merely because he lost narrowly.

Many of the arguments I make are identical to the ones Hitchens makes (and usually not because he invented them), and the arguments Christians, including you, make are identical to the ones D'Souza makes. The difference is usually in the way they are able to phrase the arguments (Hitchens in particular is a master of prose), not in the actual substance. That's not to say they are both very knowledgeable and are able to illustrate their points very well.

Hate to break it to you, but neither of them are doing ground-breaking work here: both are popularising arguments that have been around for at least several decades and were first invented and discussed by philosophers (the real giants).

Dr. Craig, who is a professional academic scholar and theologian, has authored the Kalam Cosmological Proof for the Existence of God, which caused a great deal of controversy among philosophical circles, and still (after more than 30 years) hasn't found a disproof.

Yep, Craig is closer to being a 'giant' than the two above are.
But as is pointed out in the article, the Cosmological argument is simply rehashing the same line of thinking employed by Aristotle and Aquinas. It's a new edition of the First Cause argument, and the problems of it have already been highlighted by people like David Hume.

[Scorch]

Many of the arguments I make are identical to the ones Hitchens makes (and usually not because he invented them), and the arguments Christians, including you, make are identical to the ones D'Souza makes. The difference is usually in the way they are able to phrase the arguments (Hitchens in particular is a master of prose), not in the actual substance. That's not to say they are both very knowledgeable and are able to illustrate their points very well.

Hate to break it to you, but neither of them are doing ground-breaking work here: both are popularising arguments that have been around for at least several decades and were first invented and discussed by philosophers (the real giants).

Very true. A lot of Hitchen's substance is drawn from Hume, Schopenhauer, Marx and other such thinkers. That being said, I find that his eloquence and extremely comprehensive historical knowledge make many of the arguments much more accessible for others, and that is a valuable thing.