In an interview a few years back with The Sun magazine, atheist bigwig Sam Harris had this to say about the comparable (de)merits of religion and rape:
If I could wave a magic wand and get rid of either rape or religion, I would not hesitate to get rid of religion.
You can read the whole interview starting here.
And some people wonder why so many atheists have broken with Harris and the rest of the Old School New Atheist Boys Club to start Atheism Plus.
EDITED TO ADD: Hadn’t noticed that the interview was from 2006, so maybe this is old news to a lot of atheists. Still horrible.
Skyrimjob: You know, it’s pretty funny when someone calls Hitchens a “hack” in prose so vastly inferior to Hitchens’ own that I’m reminded of cave scratchings.
Ooh! I am crushed, devastated, I shall crawl into a hole and die… someone who thinks the written word, in any form, is akin to cat scratchings has made the argument that to understand when someone is a hack one must be a better writer, in their estimation, than the person accused of hackery.
That’s like saying one can’t pan a restaurant if one isn’t a professionally trained chef, able to whip up something better.
Moreover, that you like Hitchens writing puts you in a suspect place when you attack his critics with that line of argument. It’s not only logically wrong, it’s morally suspect.
I understand that we are attacking someone whom you idolize. I also see that you aren’t actually defending Hitchens, so much as attacking us.
Show us some of the brilliant argument,and stellar writing, you think he’s done.
Because the only example on the page is him slamming Betty Friedan for being not funny, and saying Al Franked was a hit because he was a partisan hack with good control of his face.
It wasn’t exactly Pulitzer prize-winning stuff, and this, although I’d argue that even if it’s not your thing he objectively has an amazing command over the language, isn’t supported by the examples present; to say nothing of having a specious claim (where is the “objective” touchstone to hold his prose against? Did he string a coherent sentence together, sure, but so can I (even if you don’t like the style), and so can my 13 year old sister.
But the merits of his prosody are subjective. I find it, as I said, facile. It’s cheap shots (Franken is a Partisan Hardliner), and self-induldgent airs of s being above it all. His greatest failing (in my opinion) is that same injection of his seld into the writing he did. He was an objectionable shit, and that’s what I see in his work.
When all is said and done, he was selling himself, as anti-hero, and I didn’t care for it. He could have the stylistic expertise of Neruda, Pushkin and Marlowe, all rolled into one, and it would still suck, because his subect was cheap and tawdry.
Skyrimjob, are you an objectivist too?
b/c I read howard’s post and the first thing I thought was, “Oh, like Ayn Rand.”
@blitzgal
‘Make-up isn’t even an option’
Then you have not seen some of the men I have.
If I too was a petty, childish person I might be tempted to call that little rant sour grapes on the part of Hitchens.
Ha! That little foot-stomp is the second funniest thing I’ve ever heard from Hitchens. “Stupid girls, laughing at a mere comedian when they had a golden opportunity to fawn over me, their superior! Didn’t they notice how brilliantly I talked over that female? Truly my genius is wasted on hoi polloi!”
The funniest thing I’ve ever heard from Hitchens is those noises he made when they waterboarded him. Come on, that was comedy gold.
But then he either turned into a neocon or outed himself as one and I was just terribly embarrassed for him.
Drinkin’ the Hate20, I see. Sure, Hitchens broke with liberal ideology sometimes- and whether or not I agree, I have to respect his integrity on that front. But to call him a “neocon” is ridiculous.
Skyrimjob, are you an objectivist too?
Of course not.
Oh, and is Skyrimjob MRAL? Kind of sounds like him
Why should that be obvious?
You respect the integrity of people who’re pro-torture? That’s certainly an interesting approach to ethics.
The funniest thing I’ve ever heard from Hitchens is those noises he made when they waterboarded him. Come on, that was comedy gold.
And he revised his position on waterboarding as torture, making himself look a little bit dumb in the process. A less principled person wouldn’t have.
You know, you guys, and the rest of the post-mortem Hitchens haters that have grown like mold since his death, are a bunch of opportunistic turds. Half of the people talking shit about him would never have had the sack to do so when he was alive. I especially can’t believe all the atheists shitting on him. Seriously ungrateful.
So…is nobody allowed to dislike Hitchens at any level without being a hater?
Does that apply to all writers, or all atheist writers, or just him?
Atomic mutant, yes the issue is possibly more nuanced than we are having. So what?
Misogyny isn’t going to go away when religion does. Wars won’t go away when religion does. Terrorism won’t go away when religion does. Why? Religion, nationalism, the need for terror tactics are all justifications for a deeper underlying problem. So you remove one justification. People, particularly those in power will use the other justifications and invent new ones. And the misery will march on.
Or, I guess, all dead people?
Hitchens got waterboarded?
Yeah, I totally get scared to mock famous people anonymously on the Internet until after they’re dead. Otherwise, they might come after me.
Also, grateful? Honey, I’m British. Atheists are doing fine in the UK, no need for St Christoper the Grouchy to save us from…whatever you think he saved atheists from.
(St George slew the dragon, and St Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. What did St Christopher do?)
Religion, nationalism, the need for terror tactics are all justifications for a deeper underlying problem. So you remove one justification. People, particularly those in power will use the other justifications and invent new ones. And the misery will march on.
As Hitch said once, I’m not convinced of this line of thinking. I mean, obviously I agree that religion is not the sole source of violence. There are other underlying causes.
But I’m not so sure that humanity is inevitably inclined toward war. I think there are concrete reasons, and yeah, religion is one of the biggest ones.
Yes, Skyrimjob, we’re the unreasonable ones. You’re right and we’re sorry. We should never have called anyone turds, or mold, or used buzzwords to dismiss criticism like ‘haterade’. We should never have told people who disagreed with us that they were merely jealous of our idols. It’s clear that we were less interested in engaging in a discussion and more interested in insulting anyone who disagreed. That was immature and I’m sorry.
Oh wait hang on, my apology’s upside down
Mother Teresa dies: 1997
Hitchens publishes book about how she sucks: 2012
Gandhi dies: 1948
Hitchens writes about how he sucks: 2011
Charles Dickens dies: 1870
Hitchens writes about how he sucks: 2010
I think one of the big reasons for war is the western populace being conned into thinking there’s a constant scarcity while so many other countries are actually experiencing extreme deprivation. I think greed and lust for power are major instigators. I like Bhuddist thinking on these issues. I read some of the Dali Llamas teachings and for as far as I understand it, he’s bang on on how the huge conflicts have developed.
Carried Christ across a river, was a giant with the head of a dog.
OT, but if you ever get the chance to go see the Dalai Lama speak, take it, even if you’re not a Buddhist. He tends to speak with a combination of blunt common sense and compassion that will leave you with a serious case of the warm fuzzies.
Is that orange haterade or raspberry? There’s an important distinction to be made there.
You thinking Hitchens had an “amazing command over the language” isn’t the same as him being “objectively” anything. You like his style. Fine. I find it overblown and cliched – “lady governor” and “imposing shores of Alaska” are two eye-rolling examples just from that one sour little article quoted above.
Either way, it doesn’t change the evidence that he was a misogynistic jerk. And as for being a genius … wasn’t this the bloke who only grasped that waterboarding is torture after he experienced it? And this after years of defending the practice? Yeah, a genius who can’t even get his imagination to encompass what torture is. He was just another self-promoting, wordy product of an Oxbridge education.
Back to Sam Harris and the “get rid of relgion” mob – what’s the bet he’d include anything that isn’t absolute atheism? I wouldn’t be surprised if just believing in a soul or afterlife was included in his definition. And if that’s so, even without the horrific rape comment, then he can go take a long walk on a short pier.
Would Hitchens use the word haterade? How has using this word done any honor to his memory as a genius and leading thinker.
If I had ever met the guy I’d have told him to sod off.