Christopher Hitchens Has Some Opinions
Here's a pretty decent uncut video interview of Christopher Hitchens — one of the only who actually makes me come close to rethinking my long-held and disgustingly-liberal views on the war in Iraq – in which he…
* Accuses President Obama of being a fellow atheist who's too cowardly to admit it publicly
* Expresses his deep pride for initially and continually supportinghe U.S.'s invasion and occupation of Iraq
* Explains why he sought out people who would waterboard him, and how it's disingenuous to call it "simulated" drowning
* Admits that quitting smoking was even more unpleasant than getting waterboarded
* Hints at his plan to make God is Not Great as a funnier version of Bill Maher's Religulous
Try as I might, I just can't seem to figure out why Hitchens would doubt Barack Obama's much-professed Christian faith which just so happened to coincide nearly perfectly with the beginning of his political career.
Why would he be so jaded as that?
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Political suicide my ass!
"But as far as I'm concerned, anyone (like Hitchens) claiming that they can know with certainty that God does not exist is just as full of shit as the fundamentalist Christians claiming to have insight into the divine plan. Both sides are just preaching distorted religions."
Even if he claimed to know for sure that there is no god, or no gods (which he does not) then he still wouldn't be able to compete with the religious. There are no commandments, holy books, no rules on what to eat, who to sleep with and when not to work etc in atheism. And no thought crimes. No improbable promises either. Its not dogmatic. And its no religion.
Obama certainly is an improvement over Bush when it comes to faith.
Faith is believing what you know ain't so.-twain
its political suicide in the states for atheists to be truthful.
Matt M.,
Atheists like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, etc. don't claim "they can know with certainty that God does not exist". That's exactly what they don't do.
They look at the claims for the existence of a god –be they scriptural, cultural, historical, scientific or what have you– and base their belief on what the evidence shows.
In contrast, religious people claim to know God and what he wants for certain. They get this knowledge from something called "faith". Put simply, faith is a strong belief that is held despite or perhaps because of the lack of evidence to support it.
Both groups can be very opinionated. The difference however, is that members of the first group will change their opinions and beliefs if and when new evidence for the existence of God presents itself. At this point though nobody is really holding their breath.
Members of the second group are not likely to alter their beliefs or opinions in the face of any evidence or the amazing lack of it. Indeed, the less the human race needs God or the supernatural as an explanation for things (i.e. evil spirits don't cause sickness, germs do and Darwin's theory of evolution as opposed to the belief of creation), the stronger their beliefs might become. That's what faith is all about.
That god doesn't exist and that the fundamentalist christian "God" does aren't by far equivalent propositions. This "argument" is often made not only by wishy washy agnostics and relativists, but also by intellectually dishonest religious people (why do you believe in your religion and proselytize and then are willing to admit that "god doesn't exist" is an equal proposition, and ONLY bring that up when it's time to attack those "religious" atheists?).
Even though there is no direct evidence for both positions, there is plenty of direct evidence AGAINST one of them (guess which one). Only one of both propositions (again, guess) is perfectly in accordance of what we know about the universe.
If that's the case, Chris, you'll probably be wanting a single malt whisky, since "whiskey" is the Irish or (most) American versions. It's unequivocally "whisky" if you mean Scotch single malt (which I'm pretty sure you do).
Also, wasn't Obama going to church for years? And if he were at church for political motives, wouldn't he have picked a less controversial church?
This isn't to say that I think religion should be a part of our politician's public life- in fact, I'd prefer it wasn't. But as far as I'm concerned, anyone (like Hitchens) claiming that they can know with certainty that God does not exist is just as full of shit as the fundamentalist Christians claiming to have insight into the divine plan. Both sides are just preaching distorted religions.
While I still disagree with his views on the Iraq war, he still is at the top of my "people I'd most like to have a single malt whiskey with" list.