3/8 Christopher Hitchens vs Robert Wright on Religion

[jimbob1969]

one's drinking coffee the other wine. Draw your own conclusions. hic

[blackaddera]

@IanBillings00 i'll have to agree with you but it also seems to me that Wright's vocabulary is much smaller than Hitchens' so he can't bring his arguments as well as Christopher

[Stuckherewithyou]

God is just an easier way of believing in ourselves for some people. Where they lack, they project god as a sort of third person ego. Seems to me the god idea is just a response to the "fail" side of humanity.

[8saturn9]

megtrench--ditto

Religion is largely harmless and even useful? I'm having a difficult time believing Wright is wearing this hat.

This makes me want to include him in that category of people who cannot shake the feeling of being monitored. How horrible it must be to think all of one's thoughts and actions are being monitored by a judgmental agent. I hate to say it, but I think Wright may have a mild form of this brand of God disease.

[wubbadubdub]

wright is just a profoundly dull thinker

[megtrench]

now now, read The Moral Animal before saying that. Hard to believe this is the same guy actually.

[andyissemicool]

That's exactly what I was thinking throughout both these interviews. I held him in pretty high esteem after reading that book until watching this. His defense of religion as benign really just seems pathetic.

[hazydavey]

Wright may be correct when he says that nobody has an entirely rational foundation in their lives...BUT...that does not mean that all non-rational elements are equal OR equally non-rational.

[niginit]

Wright doesn't seem to have read a single word of Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, or Harris.

Freud either.

Silly people ignore great authors.

[IanBillings00]

Seems to me that Wright doesn't necessarily disagree with Hitchens on anything other than the subtitle to his book.

What I don't get is if that is the case, then why didn't he just read Hitchens' book first, then argue? As you said, Wright seems completely aloof from his whole arguement, making him appear to be getting pummelled into the ground.

Maybe he is only doing this to get recognition, or celebrity, or just to have someone famous on his show? It is probably a money issue.

[niginit]

I think you may be on to something : )

Making money along the way of battling the legion of crazies is noble, whereas clinging on to the coattails of a notable public intellectual is not.

[IanBillings00]

I've noticed this ever-increasing trend within the public debates of religion and god. At first there was simple arguements from Epicurus, to Freud, and Martin, and those held unchallanged by anything strong. Suddenly there's people with more strong arguements against god, and sure enough here comes the wave of theologians to dismiss these arguements with cyclical logic, 'bending' of beliefs, and a'la carte religiosity.

Recently people like Wright have jumped into the debate, ignorantly.

[niginit]

Well, he should just become self aware and consider himself an atheist and join the good fight.

There really is no room on either side, for someone who disagrees with religion so much, yet will defend it as if it's some kind of virtue to do so.

I've said it countless times. Religion needs to become conscious, realize it's been battered by reason, science, and fact, and then crawl back up it's own ass, never to be seen again.

People just won't let it go, clinging to falsehoods.

[IanBillings00]

I totally agree, as I am a militant and active atheist. It's time to move on from this period of delusion and deliberate hinderance of critical reasoning. The entire human species needs to wake up and see what the real world entails, and how there is nothing, absolutely NOTHING that substantiates anything 'supernatural' or metaphysical being real.

The only thing they have left is 'feelings,' and as Harris has pointed out, neurology is quickly explaining away numenous feelings physiologically.

[niginit]

Like I said, it's time to put down the binky, bah bah, nooky, or whatever you wanna call it. It's a pacifier.

A more poetic fellow than myself said it better.

"Give away the stone. Let the oceans take and

Transmutate this cold and fated anchor.

Give away the stone. Let the waters kiss and

Transmutate these leaden grudges into gold.

Let go. "

[IanBillings00]

Ah yes, good old Maynard Keenan to bring us incredibly difficult to interpret lyrics, as always! I share your sentiments, though I feel that religion is less of a pacifier, and far more of a method of societal control. It allows the general populace to be controlled and manipulated quickly and easily, with an absolute minimal resistance, by those who pass themselves as divinity, particularly royalty.

It has morphed into an all-out excuse to do and act how ever one may interpret the teachings.

[niginit]

It's a pacifier, in my view, because it works to pacify the mind of the believer, into a child-like state of content.

In other words, religion stultifies the ability to think.

Yes, I would say it's incredibly useful to those in power to use on naive and gullible masses.

"this is our concern, dude"

We need to unlock as many minds as we can, before the powerful become too strong to oppose.

Raise consciousness. Politely remove the sucker from the mouth of the semi-conscious.

[ragglefraggle09]

@IanBillings00

this debate centers mainly around hitchen's strong belief of religion being holistically evil and wright's belief that its widespread and passionate usage by humans has to signify some evolutionary function. from an objective view wright is correct and even more mature. from my own subjective view i side a bit more with hitchens.

[ItsameAlex]

@niginit

Have you read ''the moral animal''? coz that's an amazing book and proves he's also a great author.

PS: Freud? Seriously?

[niginit]

@ItsameAlex

Yes, I have.

What's wrong with Freud? Read 'The future of an illusion', if you haven't yet.

Also, you could read Dennett, instead of Wright and become a great deal more learned about this topic. It seems that Wright is not willing to follow his own logic and look for Darwinian explanations for religious ideology across the board. He seems to think a la carte, when it comes to the dangers of religion. In other words, he has not thought it through.