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.
The Dalai Lama is amazing. He is at once concise and eloquent, and cuts to the heart of so much.
What did he think waterboarding was, if not torture?
As much as I didn’t care for his later move to America and sell out period, I really can’t imagine him approving of a word like “haterade”. It’s childish, clumsy, and inelegant.
If it is objectively wrong, then surely you won’t mind explaining the parameters for measuring the quality of writing on a terrible – bad – mediocre – good – great scale, and defending your assertion that this man’s writing is objectively great? Since it’s objective?
@ inarashii
Only world leader who I’ve ever wanted to hug! He really is a lovely man.
Really? If someone successfully advances a cause then those who benefitted from that work shouldn’t criticize them? How long does that last, exactly? Am I allowed to criticize someone like Susan B Anthony for her racism, or as a woman who is able to vote thanks to her, am I required to simply be “grateful” that she existed at all? Should I attack and dismiss anyone who mentions that the US’s founding fathers owned slaves? Or is it terribly insulting to their memories to acknowledge that they were complicated people who had good and bad aspects like the rest of us mere mortals?
It’s like he’s everybody’s cool grandpa (whether or not you actually had a cool grandpa). I just want to hug him!
The other person who is totally like that is Desmond Tutu. They are friends, of course.
Quoted for truth.
Look, Skyrimjob – if reading pompous, dour literature about how Christopher Hitchens And People Who Look And Think Just Like Him Are The Bestest Most Smartest People EVAH floats your boat, fill yer boots. But that doesn’t mean I have to like him, or think he was a good person, or a paragon of atheism (I like my atheism without wars, racism or misogyny, since those are some of the things I dislike about organised religion but that’s just a personal preference).
My favourite colour is red. I think that, aesthetically, it is a very nice colour. Many people agree with me. More people probably don’t. It does not follow that a) red is objectively good or b) people who disagree are haterz.
Same goes for my favourite band, food, film, TV programme, or hat.
ah yes, being a white dude with opinions surely is the pinnacle of bravery. How silly that manboobsers have forgotten such an basic fact of life.
And at the risk of being accused of misandry or “playing the gender card” or whatever, I can’t help but notice that we have a dude telling a group of women that their outrage over Hitchens’ misogyny is a terrible injustice and said misogyny should be overlooked because he was a “great writer” or whatever. So Skyrimjob, feel free to take your male privilege and your silencing bullshit and fuck off.
If I had a nickel for every time women and other minorities have been told not to let their oppression get in the way of appreciating some bigot’s ~genius~, I’d be in Mitt’s tax bracket.
Desmond Tutu gives me the warm fuzzies too, and on the plus side you could actually hug him since he’s not a monk.
My favorite Dalai Lama story was when a writer went to meet him and was visibly nervous and intimidated. The Dalai Lama solved this problem by tickling him.
And as CassandraSays and emilygoddess pointed out – what, precisely, do atheists around the world have to be grateful to Hitchens for? Why the assumption that his writing affected so many people? I was near-atheist for years, had never heard of him, wouldn’t have wasted my time reading him if I had, and never had any trouble from anyone about my beliefs. Believe it or not, your genius pal Hitch was irrelevant to billions of people’s lives – atheists among them.
Actually yes, for the record I publicly disliked Hitchens before he died. Truly I am the bravest soul in the world.
Also, Dawkins is a tool. Come at me bro.
Seconding the Dawkins is a tool comment!
I know who it is Hitchens reminds me of now – all those godawful pompous, snobbish college masters and professors who populate the Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis series.
Anyone remember when Dawkins stuck to books about evolutionary biology? Those were good. I wish he’d do that again – be a scientist instead of a professional religion-hater.
It’s also pretty darn hilarious when folks feel the need to use the “well YOU’RE no writer so neener neener poop on you!” argument.
Seriously, I’m not a movie maker, but I criticize tons of movies. I’m not a professional chef, but I can talk about how pretentious (not to mention gross) I think it is to have stuff like a bone to suck the marrow out of in a five star restaurant. I’m no master musician, but I tend to feel like some “classical” music is trumped up and over-rated to the point to where there is a reason it makes some people fall asleep.
Am I wrong? Maybe. Am I right? Maybe. Taste is subjective. People are allowed to like and dislike things. That’s part of being human.
And I’ll note that it’s fair to dislike people, regardless of their talent, for their political or sociological positions on things alone. That’s why I don’t read Ayn Rand or Tim LaHaye or (shudder) Glenn Beck. And I’m allowed to do that whether you think Tim or Ayn or Glenn are the worst or best writers evah because I’m a grown ass human being with tastes and the ability to decide things for myself, just like you. It’s almost like we all have individual brains and thoughts within those brains or something.
I’ll also note, some people might not have joined in on the haterade party until after the man died because some of us might not have even known who he was. Pardon me for being effectively atheist without looking for a pompous white dood to tell me how to do my not-religion.
My problem with him is misogyny.
Less than 5% of scientists are religious. There is a connection between the philosophy of science and atheism that can and should be explored. Religions are essentially making claims about the universe and many of them can be tested, so what group is better qualified to discuss something of that nature than scientists? I think comparing that to “hate” really trivializes actual hatred- his writing (such as The God Delusion) is about as polite as one can be when discussing these things.
Skyrimjob: You’ll be happy to know I said he was a torture loving hack, and a con-job while he was alive.
I even said when it was known he was dying.
It’s also weak-tea (and pathetic) that you want some sort of “tribal” loyalty to atheism to trump his shitty beliefs on things. Is that something like Reagan’s “11th commandment”, his being an atheist makes it wrong to say he was a weasely little shit who thought women were inferior and killing Muslims was ok, and torturing them was just ducks?
Sorry, his atheism doesn’t make those ok.
It’s also to be noted that you still aren’t actually defending him. You are attacking us for not liking him. That’s an important distinction.
Um, no? Religious beliefs are non-scientific by their very nature and can be neither proven nor disproven. And, no, calling someone else’s beliefs a delusion is not polite.
Dawkins’ books are scarcely more than compendiums of questions and problems that have been asked (and answered) many times before by people much smarter than him. You can do better.
Wait a minute, “Hitch”… You two were buddies or something? Went down to the pub for a couple of rounds? It’s hackneyed to pretend to a personal intimacy by way of diminutive forms of address… and since you didn’t use it in the manner of an habitual shorthand (a la my calling Tom Martin, “Tommy Boy”, or mocking Steel with the name of his previous incarnation) it’s comes across as an attempted Argument from Authority, in that you are calling him with a nickname, rather than using the sobriquet most of us are using (and kudos to you if you can explain why I chose that word, since you are such a scholar of the objective value of prose… demerits, of course, if you cannot).
To expand on pecuniums thought, its also no diferent than saying one cannot criticize the Pope for his shitty positions because he’s God mouthpiece. You’re elevating another human being in a very detrimental way. Criticism is sometimes necessary to keep people from commiting grevious wrongs. Which is what Hitchens was committing. Your values and pov may vary.
Except for the part where he likens religious belief to a mental health pathology, which is AT best impolite to both believers and the mentally ill, and at worst flat-out ableist.
Another thing on the “grateful” line: not everyone feels grateful for having arrogant, rude and condescending people perpetually mouthing off. If I were still atheist, I’d be bloody embarrassed to think anyone could associate my beliefs about the world and about religions with those of Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris et al. They’re preaching to the choir.
Well, more like that one guy who no one else in the choir likes because he tries to grope the asses of women who stand next to him during practice and spends all his breaks sniping about how terrible everyone who isn’t part of the choir is. The vast majority of the choir try to ignore him.
Actually that’s part of my beef with online atheism – many of the people involved honestly seem to believe that they’re the only atheists on earth and that nobody would ever become or stay an atheist without Dawkins etc to lead the way.
I first started telling people that I was an atheist when I was 8. No Dawkins book or online support group required.