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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
By propagandizing on behalf of the rich and powerful?

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Originally posted by Alogon:

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Originally posted by Fr Weber:
By propagandizing on behalf of the rich and powerful?

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He came and went like a comet before I ever read anything he wrote or otherwise paid much attention. So I have little basis for an opinion; but if and when I do form one, I hope that it will be as consistent as he was. It does seem strange for anyone in the West to just sorta dislike him when he fulminated about the threat of Christianity, and really despise him only when he found Islam threatening as well.

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It put him on the same side as the neo-cons on this issue, but it didn't necessarily make him a neo-con. Maybe he saw it as a moral duty to overthrow a vile regime of which he had first hand experience.

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Originally posted by Tom Paine's Bones:
I think Hitchens' support for the war, while uncharacteristic in some ways, was nevertheless consistent with his thorough-going opposition to totalitarianism and tyranny in all its forms:

It put him on the same side as the neo-cons on this issue, but it didn't necessarily make him a neo-con. Maybe he saw it as a moral duty to overthrow a vile regime of which he had first hand experience.

This video gives some insight.

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I've read in multiple places Hitchens changed after the fatwa on Rushdie. Don't know if that's true or not.

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I would have proffered the creation of cities as they are (am I not correct?) defined in Britain. A city is a municipality that has either a cathedral or a university.

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Originally posted by Alogon:
Christopher is right (IMHO) that morality does not require religion, in theory. Practice, for a society as a whole, may be another matter.

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I would have proffered the creation of cities as they are (am I not correct?) defined in Britain. A city is a municipality that has either a cathedral or a university.

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Originally posted by Tom Paine's Bones:
How do you think we should honour and respond to this man's legacy?

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Originally posted by Tom Paine's Bones:
I've tended to see this view (i.e. that atheism is ok for the educated but bad for the great unwashed) as a fairly weak argument. It comes across as arrogant and condescending, because it denies the rather important question of what's true, and is willing to use religion quite instrumentally (even, perhaps, cynically) for social ends.

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It seems to me that the proper answer is more education (especially focused on the development of critical thought) so that people can make informed and reasonable ethical decisions, not the inculcation of religion.

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Cities have generally been based around some combination of trade and administration, and have long had institutions of learning and piety in them. So I don't think christianity gets the credit there.

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Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Rest eternal grant unto him, O Lord:and let light perpetual shine upon him....

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Have always therefore printed in your remembrance, how great a treasure is committed to your charge. For they are the sheep of Christ, which he bought with his death, and for whom he shed his blood. The Church and Congregation whom you must serve, is his Spouse, and his Body. And if it shall happen that the same Church, or any Member thereof, do take any hurt or hindrance by reason of your negligence, ye know the greatness of the fault, and also the horrible punishment that will ensue.

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Originally posted by Ahleal V:
He was unrepentant. Utterly. And he died an apostate. He had rejected utterly the saving work of Christ. And this isn't that uncommon - and maybe I should be more charitable, but...

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Originally posted by Rosina:
He was a fool - "The fool has said in his heart, "There is no God." Who fooled him into believing there is no God?
I wonder who taught him to deny God and honour man?
Like all of us he was born an atheist, the fooling comes later

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
Whichever way the tide was flowing, he wanted to swim the opposite way.
He described himself as a contrarian

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Originally posted by Alogon:
I would have proffered the creation of cities as they are (am I not correct?) defined in Britain. A city is a municipality that has either a cathedral or a university.
Not exactly – early English cities were created by royal charter although a diocesan cathedral was a consideration. Things have changed over time. You might want to look up “City status in the United Kingdom” in Wikipedia
You don't build a cathedral without believing in God.
Most UK cathedrals were built at a time when, for most fundamental questions, there was no practical alternative to “goddidit”. I don't know where you get the idea that cities were founded to glorify a god - they came into existence for practical (commercial and mutual defence) reasons and, like many other aspects of life, got (to some extent) hijacked by religion.

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Originally posted by Alogon:
If it seems always to be the case that most people behave morally only in religious societies,
Is there any evidence to suggest this?
Some atheistic societies have, to their shame, been very good at imposing their morality on the populace (I'm no historian but I've heard of the cultural revolution and the Stasi)
then we must consider the possibility that religion has some truth in it.
Who decides what is moral? Tax cuts for the wealthy, affordable healthcare, gun control, no abortion - ever - even for a child who has been incestuously raped and will be killed by her foetus before it becomes viable?

If it turned out that Muslims, Hindus and Wiccans behaved more morally than Christians would that indicate that Christianity had less truth than its competitors?

It would, of course, be a possibility to consider, but being a possibility is not an argument for cause and effect. Christian societies have, for most of their existence, been happy with slavery, content with child labour and seen nothing wrong in treating women as chattels. Has morality changed or were Christian societies institutionally immoral despite their cathedrals?

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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
I don't know where you get the idea that cities were founded to glorify a god - they came into existence for practical (commercial and mutual defence) reasons and, like many other aspects of life, got (to some extent) hijacked by religion.

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If it seems always to be the case that most people behave morally only in religious societies,

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Is there any evidence to suggest this?

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Who decides what is moral?

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Originally posted by Alogon:
If I had been in the audience, however, and had my wits about me, I would have proffered the creation of cities as they are (am I not correct?) defined in Britain. A city is a municipality that has either a cathedral or a university.

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Originally posted by Ahleal V:
He spent a good amount of his time trying to perusade others to leave the faith. If only one person - one soul, redeemed by the work of Christ, was then led by Hitchins to utterly reject Christ and died, and is now suffering an eternity of being separated from God and whatever torments that entails - FOREVER, UNENDING - well, the very thought of it makes me cringe in horror.

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That the universities which at least prepared the way for science were founded under the church's auspices and defended especially by the pope, you have not disputed. as I understand it the church pretty much had a stranglehold on learning in the post Roman christian world until the enlightenment (ish?) so it was inevitable that any advances are based on that tradition. Education was provided for those males who would be useful to the church, as priests, clerks, grangers etc. Just as much art and music was commissioned by or for the church - that was where the money and the power was and the choice was work for the church (or a religious patron) or scrape a living at some menial task.

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If it seems always to be the case that most people behave morally only in religious societies,Is there any evidence to suggest this?
In addition to the thuggery that one now risks in some British neighborhoods, Peter Hitchens mentioned a telling neglect of common courtesy in public, in both Britain and Soviet Russia. It was rare in Moscow, and is becoming rarer in Britain, for instance, to hold a door open for someone carrying a heavy load.

You and I will agree, I trust, that moral acts performed only in fear of punishment are not really moral, only prudent. We shouldn't be surprised if most regimes define many crimes in common-- such as murder, theft, and adultery. Obeying the laws out of fear will be most customary in police states inducing the most fear. I agree absolutely, and since, as we agree, the fear of punishment in this world is sufficient to ensure compliance how much more effective is the desire for heaven/the fear of hell in ensuring the servility of believers. When believers behave in accordance with what their religion dictates as right behaviour those believers are not being moral, merely prudent - which leads to the conclusion that only atheists have the option to behave morally.
So for a once-courteous society to be become rude and surly with no material explanation is especially noteworthy, in that public rudeness carries no tangible penalty, nor good manners towards a stranger any likely reward. You are assuming the lack of a material explanation - I suspect that many factors have played a part including in no particular order, but not limited to, feminism, increased disposable wealth and the extension of home ownership, the idealogical assault on socialism/trade unions, corporate/political greed, intolerance of minorities (including women/homosexual priests/bishops)etc.. Society has become harder, being soft is not an option, people (just) older than me complain about the attitudes of those younger but enjoy the pensions that the material environment (must have the latest 'phone/clothes etc.) has delivered to them

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Who decides what is moral? I doubt that Christopher Hitchens would be happy at all for you to try to defend him by suggesting that there is no objective answer to that question. I wasn't aware that I was trying to defend anyone. Our perception of what is moral has changed - slavery, child labour, status of women etc. - does that mean that morality has changed or merely how we define it. In some societies the attitude to women is very different to that in the UK (generalising of course) so who decides how women are treated is relevant to the morality "standard". Claiming a divine source for morality doesn't make things any better because of the "interpretations" and "revelations" that provide incompatible understandings. Even do unto others etc. is simplistic and assumes that we are all clones of a master template. I suppose we can agree on "If it harms no-one, do as you will"? But even that would seem to preclude intervening on behalf of someone who is being attacked.

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Originally posted by savedbyhim01:
The fools says in his heart there is no God. While he may have been a great man in the eyes of the world, he is not in the sight of God. He is a fool because he denied that which is plainly seen in the universe, that is that God made it.

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Originally posted by savedbyhim01:
The fools says in his heart there is no God. While he may have been a great man in the eyes of the world, he is not in the sight of God. He is a fool because he denied that which is plainly seen in the universe, that is that God made it.

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Obviously it wasn't plain to see for him. He was no fool either. You may find comfort in your imagined superiority here but the verses following that in Psalm 14 say that we are all in the same boat (Ship ).
"The Lord looks down from heaven on humankind
to see if there are any who are wise,
who seek after God.

They have all gone astray, they are all alike perverse;
there is no one who does good,
no, not one.

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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner

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Originally posted by Alogon:
I celebrated his birthday last night (thanks to this thread) by listening to the two-hour debate between brothers on Youtube, "Hitchens vs. Hitchens". Christopher supported the Iraq war and opposed religion. Peter did the opposite.

Peter's most telling point, I thought was that we have "luxury atheists" like his brother and Dawkins, cogitating in academic ivory towers, comfortably insulated from the consequences of their ideas. Then we have neighborhoods of the great unwashed, perhaps only a few miles away, where the influence of religion is nowhere to be found, and where you must fear getting kicked to death, and your head being used like a football, by "practical atheists." He said such horrors are reported in the news fairly frequently. Christopher is right (IMHO) that morality does not require religion, in theory. Practice, for a society as a whole, may be another matter. How have the attempted counterexamples fared?

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Christopher had a good point, at first blush, when he asked the audience to think of a good deed that required a belief in God to perform. It is hard to think of one, and the very parable of the Good Samaritan points out that religious considerations apparently did not figure in the Samaritan's helping, but they explicitly did so for those who did not help. But if we are asked to think of bad deeds done in the name of religion, or by people who declared that God was on their side, atrocities are too many to name.

If I had been in the audience, however, and had my wits about me, I would have proffered the creation of cities as they are (am I not correct?) defined in Britain. A city is a municipality that has either a cathedral or a university.

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You don't build a cathedral without believing in God. And it also turns out that our first universities, too, were founded in Christendom to the glory of God, and not otherwise.

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The cases in which insights important to science were opposed and threatened until the pope came down on their side outnumber Galileo incidents.

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
@Alagon - a good deed which requires belief in God to perform? An American pastor gave Hitch a knock down answer: "Tithing!"

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