Christopher Hitchens- RIP

[Siggie]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

Nothing great about him. He was a militant atheist and those are the worst kind. He wrote negative things about Mother Teresa, of all people!

Were they false? Others have criticized her as well. Did she not believe that people should suffer and that that suffering brought them closer to God? I wonder how the people whose suffering she did nothing to relieve felt about that.

And what exactly is a militant atheist? One that speaks negatively about religion? By that definition every Christian who does the same about Islam is a militant Christian, and so on... Funny how you have to blow sh!t up and kill people to be a "militant" anything else, but the second you put voice to some of your doubts about the value of religion, you're militant.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

One of my favorite recent pieces, and btw F#CK PAKISTAN!

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/07/osama-bin-laden-201107

Honestly, that was such a pathetic, dreary, amateurish, petty, crude, childish, and pointless article, that I have better things to do that give it a line-by-line dissection. If it is typical of his recent output, and is indicitive of future displays of his vanity had he lived on, then I am greatly gladdened by his death.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

He was a militant atheist and those are the worst kind. He wrote negative things about Mother Teresa, of all people!

Once again on this forum, I am torn between not knowing if a post is meant to be serious, but posted by a idiot, or if it is a post meant to be ironic.

[yerazhishda]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

Once again on this forum, I am torn between not knowing if a post is meant to be serious, but posted by a idiot, or if it is a post meant to be ironic.

If you can't figure it out, you're probably not a good candidate to be judging such matters.

[yerazhishda]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

Nothing great about him. He was a militant atheist and those are the worst kind. He wrote negative things about Mother Teresa, of all people!

He was a second-rate 'philosopher' who probably had an inferiority complex due to the overwhelming success of his cohort, Mr. Dawkins.

That being said, RIP. Hopefully God will be merciful on him.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

Honestly, that was such a pathetic, dreary, amateurish, petty, crude, childish, and pointless article, that I have better things to do that give it a line-by-line dissection.

I'll do the first third of it, that is enough.

Look at how he begins his article. He starts by attacking a situation where rape is not treated as a crime, but where the victim is considered the criminal for having being raped, and the misuse of the word "honor". By starting his diatribe with content that no intelligent person would argue against, he seeks to weasel in unopposed the equally obnoxious opinions of his own. And a vanity-fuelled person like Hitchens wastes little time in getting down to business.

In the very next paragraph he starts behaving EXACTLY like the society he has just criticised. Hitchens treats the victim (President Asif Ali Zardari, who has seen his wife murdered) as the criminal, and uses the language of sexual repression to attack him: Zardari is “lacking in manliness”, has a “puny chest” (and, by implication, our little popinjay Hitchens has a Tarzan-like chest and “manliness” in abundance).

Then he goes on to give the explanation of all America’s problems in the world, why America is so hated everywhere. And such a simple explanation it turns out to be: “We are richer than they are, and they are jealous about it”. That is SUCH a relief: they are the ones with the problem, not us; it is their behaviour that is at fault, not ours.

He then neatly sidesteps the fact that the origins of those American subsidies to Pakistan were in American intents to destabilise what he hypocritically calls the “democracy of India”. And by using the word “democracy” he also neatly sidesteps mentioning the regular and always unpunished massacres of Muslims in India which feed Pakistan’s anger against India.

The he starts to preen himself in public, stating "as I wrote for Vanity Fair in late 2001" – i.e. "how wise and how wonderful I am: I could see things a decade before anyone else could!"

The he quotes an obscure quote (this one of his favorite pastimes btw: indulging in obscure quotes, or correcting others who quote quotes by informing them that the full quote actually says more than that). So we have an "aren't I so clever" quote, but one that has such little clarity of meaning and relevance that he has to resort to cliche to clarify it: "the tail wagging the dog". Except that, by going on to talk about lapdogs, he completely alters the meaning of "the tail wagging the dog" (perhaps because HE is the tail, and HIS READERS are the dog, or perhaps because the phrase is best known in the context of criticism of America’s foreign policy propaganda).

Then he goes on to make a wild claim, a claim he does not justify: "everybody knew that the Taliban was originally an instrument for Pakistani colonization of Afghanistan". I love the way he actually thinks he can bully his way out of having to back up this extreme claim by just saying “everybody knows it”, i.e. you asking me to justify my opinion just shows how ignorant you are. And he piles on the weasel: "Everybody knew that al-Qaeda forces were being sheltered in the Pakistani frontier town of Quetta". He next says the exact opposite, that Pakistan has little or no control over its border/frontier areas: so how can it be "sheltering" forces, or indulging in "colonisation". And Al-Qaeda, of course, has no "forces", it has a few leaders, a small group committed of supporters, and a very large number of sympathizers: but Hitchenesque extremism, perhaps because of its Marxist roots, has no shades or nuances, or any sense of humanity – the end always justifies the means (a bit like al-Qaeda: again, Hitchens ends up behaving like those he opposes).

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

If you can't figure it out, you're probably not a good candidate to be judging such matters.

Of course, the overwhelming odds are that it IS a post by an idiot; however, eternal optimist as I am, I still like to give them the benefit of the doubt.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

He was a second-rate 'philosopher' who probably had an inferiority complex due to the overwhelming success of his cohort, Mr. Dawkins.

...your post has an inept understanding of the word "philosopher". I doubt anyone (excepting you) has ever described Hitchens as a "philosopher"!

[hrai]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

I didn't need, and will never need, a "drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay" to tell me how I should think, so he wasn't important to me. If Hitchens convinced even a single person to change his or her opinion, I'd be surprised. I admit that I haven't read any of his books, but from a general awareness of his articles and broadcasted stuff, I got the impression that a lot of what he did wasn't actually dangerous or damaging attacks on those he opposed, it was just easy verbal grandstanding to those who already held the same views. And a lot of of his output had too many snide cheap shots that show the truth of that "popinjay" epithet. Sure, you can cherry-pick this or that opinion of his to prove how wonderful (or how awful) he was, but what was the overall output and its effectiveness?

Re-arrange these words : Pot, black, kettle, calling................

[Armanen]

Re: Christopher Hitchens- RIP

Were they false? Others have criticized her as well. Did she not believe that people should suffer and that that suffering brought them closer to God? I wonder how the people whose suffering she did nothing to relieve felt about that.

And what exactly is a militant atheist? One that speaks negatively about religion? By that definition every Christian who does the same about Islam is a militant Christian, and so on... Funny how you have to blow sh!t up and kill people to be a "militant" anything else, but the second you put voice to some of your doubts about the value of religion, you're militant.

You can claim a dead person stood for one thing or another based on how you use his/her teachings, writings, actions, etc. One thing I know though is that Mother Teresa did more for mankind than hawkins ever did, and she certainly is in a much better place.

Yes, a militant atheist is one who can't keep their disbelief to himself but must try to convert others to his/her destructive viewpoint. Mind, body, soul, if you are an atheist you are missing one part of the triangle. Hence a militant atheist is much more dangerous than a fundamentalist theist. But I do not expect you to understand, afterall, you only believe in the material, hence anything you do not see must not exist. Anyway, I have had this discussion with you and others her before, I don't see that there has been any progress on your end. I hope you find true enlightenment one day; it won't be science that gives it to you though you can bet on that.