This is sheer intellectual brilliance from Christopher. He's like Botham in 'Botham's Ashes': "Come on then, if you think you're hard enough; I'll take you all on alone and still beat you." And he did! Fantastic!
Pilot did stay for an answer. Jesus didn't answer it. What is truth? It is that which is the case. Everyone knows that. Maybe if he would have asked what is the truth, he would have gotten an answer.
"What is repulsive to you, you should not do to another . . . No one had better stand up and tell me that I need a God to tell me that." C-Hitch is awesome.
Chris actually contradicts himself around 1:40. He uses a quote from Rabbi Hillel about the search for truth saying, "The task may be unobtainable, but that doesn't mean you can give it up." But then immediately says that the Golden Rule is sinister because even if you always try for it, you'll always fall short. So why is it noble to search for truth and always fall short, and stupid to try to love others as you love yourself?
@jrodc22 He seems to advocate the silver rule, he just means in the religious context of sin, you could never truly treat another as if he was yourself.
@jrodc22 In the first case, you strive to be your best self by setting the compass for truth, even though you realize that it's an ideal; thus, you feel good about trying, and you are flexible enough to revise your definition of truth with evidence. Note: he thinks that it "may" be unobtainable. In the second case, you are commanded by a divine authority to "love others as you love yourself," which is impossible and can't be revised with evidence, and you are an enslaved sinner forever.
I will say that of all the opponents I have seen from the theists Peter Hitchens has been certainly the most eloquent and coherent. Small suprise he shares a chromosome or two with Dr./Prof. Hitchens.
Morality and ethics is taught in the family and in schools. Chinese and Japanese had morality and ethics before Christians arrived. Greeks and Romans invented morality and ethics by analyzing the ways of their own societies and by collecting the behavioural rules that would be less harmful for their peoples. Morality of medieval Christians or medieval Muslims are not superior to the ones of Chinese or Japanese, or Greeks or Romans.
I'm in general agreement with Christopher on religion-but he's full of shit on his comments on the green movement. The green movement is backed up and informed by science-the exact opposite of religion.
@hugoegbert79 I wouldn't say he's full of shit. Some elements of the green movement are quasi-religious, which I think testifies to the human susceptibility to religious forms of thinking - somehow we always fall into this rut, unless we guard and gird ourselves with rationality. That said, there is scientific consensus on the subject of global warming, and denying that is the same as denying evolution or gravity. I really hope Hitchens would agree, or else he's finally wrong about something.
@josenros your claim of scientific consensus could not be farther from the true. That school of thought is rapidly being debunked,disproven,and abandoned.It is nothing more than another attempt at controlling the masses by fear of apocalypse. Just another false religion brought to you courtesy of the Rev. Gore!
C Hitchens is one of the greatest speakers of our generation. I agree with his comments on the green movements to an extent but i dont think he is right by calling it religion-like, after all the affects are real. Carbon dioxide = greenhouse gas, Alot of greenhouse gas = Venus. its blindingly obvious.
it must be hard for people debating christopher, having their asses kicked time and time again...
I was a bit disappointed when he didn't destroy Peters points about iraq. I could have done better, with half of the stuff being CHRIS's points. Perhaps it is just because he's his brother.
What the heck is Peter talking about when he sais it's WORSE for someone's political life to deny global warming than it is to publicly denounce god? How many US senators deny global warming? How many deny God? Is he willfully ignorant or just stupid?
Peter's "England not intervening in USA politics since 200 years ago" line wasn't even clever, much less funny, and certainly isn't true. You get the impression that no one would know Peter existed if he weren't the younger sibling of a living lion. He reminds of Christopher Buckley compared to William F. Buckley, Jr.
5:57 " Barack Obama senator Obama has been caught in some big mouth sinister wind bag rock n roll horror show church on the south side" Christopher Hitchens. HA HA have to agree with him there a lot of churches are becoming a rock n roll freak show
The thing that has always bothered me about Chris Hitchens is his chronic misuse of history & the habit of giving examples of proof without an explanation. He is the king of insubstantiality and contextual manipulation. This is sadly missed by his gullible followers that are wowed by his superb debating skills and fast wit. He's fast on his feet and because of this ability, is seen as winning the argument when it is simply a diversion. Peter is as smart as Chris, just not as good a debater.
It is also interesting that those who did clap christopher abort their children, and if they don't they only have one or two kids anyways. While there are many Christian families with over twelve kids. To put it bluntly, once your generation dies out, there won't be many atheists left, when you look at it as a percentage.
@Thehuskarl this is assuming that atheists only come from an atheist family. which is disproved by the two brothers standing in front of you in this video..
@tenley1234 "I had some good reasons for refusing some of it. My mistake was to dispense with it all, indiscriminately. I hope to show that one of the things I was schooled in was not, in fact, religion, but a strange and vulnerable counterfeit of it -- a counterfeit that can be detected and rejected while yet leaving the genuine truths of Christianity undamaged" (pp. 10-11)." ~Peter Hitchens, the rage against God
@tenley1234 I think we all know that there are many more people who tell pollsters they are Christians than there are people who actually believe the primary doctrines taught in the Bible. The former are the type who will have children who turn away from the faith, the latter are those who see children as a blessing, and train them up in the way they should go.
@Thehuskarl if that were true the number of atheists would be decreasing, it isn't. Then the religious have never been especially gifted mathematically; their inability to see the problem with 1 000 000 year old fossils and a 10 000 yr old biblical world being a classic example,
@Skipissatan LOL, actually the problem is with the radio isotope dating method. There are many other methods of measuring time which have been overlooked by scientists because it goes against their view of biology and theology. One of these methods is the amount of dust gathered on the moon.
What you said is kind of like saying "the atheist has always been prone to make generalizations."
FYI I'm 17 y/o and I am taking Calculus 3 at my local community college. :p
@Thehuskarl are you suggesting that we have the rate of decay of Carbon-14 wrong? and do you have any evidence to support this? if so you should probably bring it forward and land yourself a nice physics professorship in the process... why would I conceivably need to know how old you are or what courses you do at college?
@Skipissatan The ONLY reason I brought that up was because you said that "the religious have never been especially gifted mathematically." PS. where did you get the word "gifted" from? Probably religion... :p (yes, that also is a joke...)
I am not saying we have the decay rate of carbon -14 wrong, only that there may be other variables which affect it's rate which we haven't discovered yet. Another possibility was that God created carbon-14 with and apparent "age"
@Thehuskarl but the decay rate is observable, you can prove it by taking objects of known age (like a dated book or tombstone) and examining the C-14 content. No serious physicist thinks that the process is anything other than reliable. This leaves your argument as "maybe got is messing with us". This is both incredibly vain as why would a god care what we think? and bizarre as why would god want to trick us? what kind of god would that be and why would you follow him? it makes no sense.
@Skipissatan I'm afraid you've made a bit of a mistake. No serious geologist uses C-14 to prove the earth is millions of years old. The furthest back it can "date" is 62,000 years. So how come we sometimes find C-14 which can't be older than 62,000 years inside of rocks which are radio-isotope dated to millions of years?
Maybe the decay rate can change, or they didn't all start at 100%.
@vau0807 I would prefer being called an utterly stupid Christian. Spam on, if that's your life's work.
@Thehuskarl You do understand the concept of a half life? all c-14 won't be gone after 62 000 years, just a high proportion of it making the process less reliable. In any case my argument still stands as at 62 000 years old the world is still much older than the 6 000 years stipulated in the bible.
@Thehuskarl Are you a smart and clever troll or a desperate and utterly stupid christian? You just suggested on a public forum that god created rocks that were millions of years old at the point of their creation. And Santa Claus can magically appear in houses without chimneys.
Did anyone else spot C. Hitchens complete contradiction when he states that Truth may be an unattainable goal but we should seek it nevertheless followed by ridiculing the notion that we should always try to love others as ourselves even though it's an unattainable goal? Wow, what hypocrisy!
Also, the fact there ARE very moral atheists who haven't even looked at a holy book and weren't brought up or surrounded by religion again, perfectly proves that our morality is built-in. Our morality has evolved from society but a lot is also built in.
For example. You don't need a fucking book / imagenary friend to tell you not to murder another human. This is 100% built-in as a species which killed its own would not last as long as we have.
Given our possible savage nature and intelligence, then we would of wiped each other out if that were the case. It's a natural feeling not to do so not only for evolutionary / gene sense but we have a natural love for other living things as we SHARE the same DNA - FACT.
True. During the bronze age the moral codes and laws were mixed with religious beliefs. They were written down in religious books instead of special moral- or law books. Morality can, and DOES, exist without religion.
Morality is cultural and common sense. A lot of it isn't even written down in the Bible or in law books.
If we did actually base our morality on religion, we wouldn't of got this far.
Or we certainly wouldn't be living in societies as civilized and free as ours.
In fact most of the wastelands of this planet are because of the fact that they do live under the constant assumption of god. Parties of god destroy nations, not liberate them.
"natural love for other living things as we SHARE the same DNA - FACT. "
What the fuck are you talking about?
This inherent love that you talk of does not exist only in your own warped mind.
We have had like 10 genocides in the last 100 yearrs with the body counts in the hundreds of millions. We routinely destroy the life of the unborn even at birth.
Not true, genocide has occurred primarily because of memes(ideas) of a viral nature perpetuated usually by one person (ie, a dictator like Mugabe, Stalin, or Hitler.) It IS in our DNA to be altruistic especially to kin. Ideas can both hurt and help us. Ideas usually hurt us when they are not challenged regularly and reasonably. Name one genocidal dictatorship today or in the past in which challenging the authority was not actively punished and or suppressed.
So you've never heard the term "kin selection?" There is evidence to support it. Look it up. Some people are skeptical of course. But then again some people are skeptical about evolution itself. I would say the debate on whether kin selection in it's current state is true is a good one and should be continued. We shouldn't, due to biases however, say that morality couldn't have come from evolution and kin selection. I'm sorry but we just aren't as special of a species as we think.
I'll take back it being just one person who perpetuates. Wherever it starts it is usually perpetuated by a smallish group of people at first and through mechanisms easily identified including propaganda and force the rest are inculcated.
No, I'm just saying that "bad" ideas make it possible for it to become a massive fuck up. The opposite is also true. "Good" ideas can make it possible for a massive success (ie medicine, mechanical engineering etc.) I'm sorry, but we simply wouldn't have lasted this long, 100,000 years plus, if we had gone on with the perception that killing people indiscriminately and constantly was ok. We're a social species that evolved to work together for the most part to survive. It's not black and white.
The problem with that type of thinking, "that it's 100% built in" is that it's not. Chimpanzees, for instance, will go out in groups and target individuals from other groups and kill them. Humans will do the same thing for whatever reason. It isn't always religion but can be any group mentality that doesn't have a murder proof structure (Janism for instance) It's more complicated than JUST saying it's religion. It's the entire way of thinking that needs to be understood. Then we can change it.
It is in fact best if children learn morality "on their own." Simply being told does not satisfy the brain's lust for experiential learning. If children practice reciprocal altruism they learn that it is beneficial and will keep doing it.
@Sumoto999 Well surely you come down on either side. Unless you're an agnostic.
If you happen to be religious then I could say the exact same of you in reverse.
I don't hold or pertain to bias either, as that's illogical. My only 'bias' is logic. But logic by definition holds no bias as it's just truth and truth is as it is, regardless of who's saying it or how it's presented.
So if Peter Hitchens was saying things that were fundamentally true, he wouldn't be a moron. But he doesn't, so he is
The golden rule is not a religious idea. It is simply putting yourself in others shoes before you act, and that is the secularist's morality. That is my "moral compass".
why dont anyone talk of the human ways of reproducing this seems to be a force we havent come close to master and yet and the root of many many problems usually of moral kinds.
Yeah, people fuck around and have kids like there is no next day. The big question today is not faith its the right to reproduce. I think we need to put the parenting back into the fucking. Peter said something about we need religion for the poor people or the young kids in the ghettos, well I thought they needed smart and nice parents.
It was never a statement. I never presented it as a fact, it was merely speculation based on the fact that he said he WOULDNT go FURTHER then deism, which suggests he COULD ACCEPT deism. If my original comment was intended as a "matter of fact" statement, I wouldnt have ended it with a question mark. You then twisted MY comment.
Im sorry if I twisted your statement. By the way though, to answer your question. Christopher Hitchens said in another debate that " I hope I have already shown how ridiculous deism is". My guess is that he is not a closeted deist.
No one can even start to debate the war on Iraq without discussing the relationship of Saddam and the Bush Administration- or without discussing how Saddam came to power.
We cannot begin a debate from the middle- lets start from the begining- the assassination of the Former King of Iraq. How was US relation with Iraq in the 80s? 90s? Was US supporting Saddam during attack kuwait? iran?
Lets start from the begining! Thus we should not build on false premises.
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Irishmauddib,
Firstly, what is fatuous is an inability of some to understand semantic rules of speech. The positive and the negative, by definition are not the same anymore than the inverse and converse are the same.
If you can't decode something as simple as the difference between two opposing statements, I simply cannot help you.
Secondly, what is really fatuous is someone who uses the term "maud dib" when viewing a debate about the Iraq War.
I have no respect for someone who is so scared of me they reply to me with a NEW COMMENT instead of with the REPLY button in order to avoid me getting an email to tell me there is a reply waiting for me.
If you want a reply from me then reply to the comment you are discussing with me. Until then I will not pander to your cowardly hiding.
You are indeed totally wrong here. You can describe the EXACT same thing in negative and positive terms. Regardless of which youre using its entirely the same thing. Therefore as I said to claim that one person invented something because he stole an idea and expressed it in the opposite terms as the first person is just.... pathetic.
And yes, I am perfectly aware of the the etymology behind the name mauddib. If you have a problem with it then you have a problem with it. I dont.
irishmauddib is in fact totally right here. and for roguewarrior to respond with a statement like "nah, positive and negative are different" just goes to show how far he/she has missed the point.
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Christopher misspeaks when he states Hillel wrote the Golden Rule. Hillel's taching was "what is repulsive to do you should no do to another" is not the Golden Rule.
The Golden Rule deals in the positive, not the negative.
Christopher is shallow and sodden far too much of the time. Imagine if he had not addled his brain with drink.
What a fatuous statement to make. It is the same thing. Whether you phrase something in the positive or the negative is meaningless once the meaning is the same. "Do not stand on the table" and "Stand anywhere but on the table" are the same thing, simply because one is in the negative changes the meaning not at all.
Just because someone can take an idea and change how it is phrased does not mean they authored it.
Wow, I am curious, what does it feel like to have so little to say, so few points to make, that all you can do instead is talk about someones penis instead? IS this really the only comment you can make after all your years of life, experience, education and upbringing? This is what the sum total of all that added together is worth? This is how you choose to represent yourself? For shame sir, for shame.
I was making fun of the question "is truth real" because I was kinda pissed that this question was asked- i felt like more relevant questions could have been asked.
If your Prefrontal Cortex and the rest of your cortex was minutely functioning, then you would have understood that comment. Moreover, if you read my comment right after it, you would have KNOWN what my comment was referring to. And 9 other people would have known as well. idiots.
Did i lose more of your valuable respect because I said nuts? lol oh ya... and the prefrontal thing- i gotta give it up to Hitchens- it feels good to say it ;) he mentions it in most of his debates- especially religious ones
And just since we're on the topic, if our pre-frontal was any bigger there would be even more violence (agression and self-interest) in this world- prolly would have eliminated our species long time ago.
Quite to the contrary, it was. Your jokes however, aren't remotely funny and it merely highlights your idiocy and childish nature entirely. If by some off chance I misunderstood that comment made by you, then I'll apologize in advance for my having not known-but in due respect it's unnecessary to resort to these childish theatrics.
That aside, Hitchens is a remarkably intelligent man; and I hold but the uppermost respect for him and his integrity.
Yes, I agree he is very inteligent & I respect him for that. However, if he wasn't on the government's payroll & so in line with NWO, then I would respect him MUCH more.
You're probably going to come back & say he is not & ask me for proof.
There's a lot of proof out there-even w/this Bullshit internet that is flooded with so much bullshit information. But unfortunately, the so-called "reliable" sources are controled. Anyway-just look into it-OR if u want, ill paste u something.lol
The question of: "Is there truth real and how do you determine that?"
What a stupid question and stupider answer by Hitchens. The answer is obvious.
Suppose NO, truth isn't real, and that's the truth. Then there is real truth. So therefore we know that there is real truth, and we know that by deductive reasoning.
That young man in the suit is a moron, and Hitchens isn't always the brightest bulb in the room.
Christopher is awesome, though I very much disagree with him on religion. Peter does a decent job of defense, but he sounds frightened at some points - I would to, if I had to argue with Christopher, and especially if he was my big brother!!! Still..an amazing debate..
I think that having faith in a creator is defendable by reason and logic, through use of empirical observations of the natural world. He would call me an idiot (if he were being nice!) for thinking so. He's still awesome.
What it comes down to is that if he believes you cannot attain truth he should sit down and say, I don't know any of the answers to your questions so I cannot answer them. I shall venture guesses, but yours are as good as mine.
To the question of "is truth real" Dr./Prof Hitchens replies, "it is unattainable"... Am I the only one who sees the irony in this statement?
He is stating his decided view of truth that "it is "unattainable" and in so doing states that he has attained it. What he should say is that "It is unattainable, i think"
Whats with this stooge prancing about saying that galloway owns them both? Galloway praised Saddam Hussein and makes apologies for terrorists. Anyone who can support the disgusting practitioners of suicide bombing is either evil or too stupid to know of what the speak.
NukeFascistAmerica - I hope you're some sort of Stephen Colbert-esque irony. If not, you must be so unbelievably stupid that you can't realise that you yourself are a fascist and warmonger (another word I expect you throw around carelessly) by wanting to "nuke" a democratic country (America). Basically, read a wider range of newspapers and stop believing everything Galloway says just because he makes a few cute jibes - he's a CRAP debater.
"5;54...Senator Obama has benn caught in some bigmouth sinister windbag rock and rock horror church on the south side. Religion is poisoning our election..."
At least he's not proud of it. McCain, for instance, sees being praised by cranks like Rod Parsley and John Hagee as a virtue; Obama is actually embarassed by his former ties with a nutball church. That is, as far as presidential candidates go, good.
True enough but Obama had the conversation with the reverend of that twisted church saying that he might have to badmouth him if word ever got out. This makes me wonder whether his shame is genuine. Chances are if they are running for president then they are an arrogant putz.
His assertion that the philosophy 'what I don't want done to me I will not do to others' is superior to 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself' shows his lack of understanding of some fundamental tenets of Christianity. Something I consider perfectly acceptable another person may find totally reprehensible and it is only in love that such a consideration will affect my decisions.
win32...all i am saying is...this is not Hitch at his best...one scotch too many...he is impared...I still agree 100% with his message and his arguements...just would like to see him a bit less impared...it's embarassing for him...
a good thing no. but no corruption as any Western Leaders record.. anyway the man needs no defendent he is one of very few great politicians fighting for human rights and against this illegal war for oil. now go fuck yourself
I won't argue with a vulgar little cretin like you. By the way, Galloway is spelt with two 'l's and there is such a thing as punctuation, at least in the English language.
tbh, I just think Peter Hitchens is a traditional, bland, "the world is falling apart/moral standards are evaporating" conservative, who more than likely lives in a rather nice part of town.
Hmm, no, Chris Hitchens was quite clear, so I don't understand why you couldn't follow him. He said not doing to others what you wouldn't want done to you (technically the silver rule, but anyway, he is in favour of the golden rule elsewhere) is moral and doable, but that LOVING YOUR ENEMY is not.Loving one's enemy is not the golden rule. The golden rule is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
beebobox...I am a huge fan of Hitchens and his work...that said, this is a very weak performance on his part...he is not as sharp as he usually is...easy on the narrow-minded turd of a person stuff, bro...let's not stoop to the level of the devout and become intolerant of criticism...this is not Hitchens at his best...still love him though...
yah and as we all know alcoholics are always wrong and evil men
oh wait, you're a narrowminded turd of a person that fails to see good argument in the face of moronic argument (presented by his ignoramus brother called peter).
The environmental movement bases predictions on observations. Like science. People don't like to hear that. But wanting facts to be not there will not make them go away.
If the media only show the warnings, not the content part of the environmental organisations, that's a problem you have to talk to the media about. Because the research, the positive ideas, they are there. Just them people in it may not be as famous as Al Gore.
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If only Hitchens was a tad more modest and humble, how much more acceptable would his opinion be? With an ego that cannot be quenched, it is no surprise to me he became an American. No Brit audience would have put up with his arrogance.Americans by and large are sheep. Certainly he was more persuasive than his brother. However, if I were walking down a dark alley and was just mugged, I'd say his brother might stop and offer to help, I doubt Hitchen's ego would permit him. I'd vote for the human.
madmolecule - You do C. Hitchens a diservice when you presume he wouldn't help you if you were being mugged. Hitchens and Ayaan Hirsi Ali both give a talk once(she is a former Muslim who now has to have bodyguards because of threats against her life) and Hitchens said that if anyone tried anything he would gladly step in to shield her as he hoped everyone in the room would.
Thank you for your comments. Ayaan Hirsi Ali,is a cultured, elegant , articulate Woman with compassion. Hitchens is an egocentric , self absorbed individual , who bilittles his opnonents to satsify some inner inadequacy of his. He covers his audience with the cloak of condecension only to make him appear supreme, while all the time he is being snide.He will spring to Ayaan's defence only because he admires and agrees with her for what she says, not for what she is.Herein lies his dishonesty.
I know he's a bit arrogant but thats part of his personality. A bit oscar wilde-ish. I love his personality, its adorable even though I don't agree with his stance on the war.
"Love your neighbour as yourself" is impossible. We, like all animals, have an inbuilt survivial instinct. Perhaps there are situations when we will put others above ourselves (and I can think of hundreds, not just the big ones like parents dying for their children or soldiers dying to defend the liberty of their homeland). But essentially, day be day, we love ourselve smost and perhaps should until we can merge our bodies and midns into a joint entity - perhaps in 1,000's of years to come.
This is sheer intellectual brilliance from Christopher. He's like Botham in 'Botham's Ashes': "Come on then, if you think you're hard enough; I'll take you all on alone and still beat you." And he did! Fantastic!
musiclover9361 1 week ago
Peter sounds very much like Christopher Lee. That's who it was.
PoundFFFFFF 1 month ago
Christopher Hitchens is pulling a Snake Plissken here. "Call me Snake."
"The name's Plissken."
undisputedgreatest 1 month ago
"Passionately agnostic"- best credo, evangelizing always leads to violence
mikejpete 3 months ago
Thank you for posting this, HauensteinCenter.
writersblock26 5 months ago
the "doctor professor" gag was hilarious
detahdomo 6 months ago 2
Pilot did stay for an answer. Jesus didn't answer it. What is truth? It is that which is the case. Everyone knows that. Maybe if he would have asked what is the truth, he would have gotten an answer.
MPaulHolmes 6 months ago
I wonder if Peter's presence accounts for Christopher being so blithe.
XlXKrampusXlX 6 months ago
"What is repulsive to you, you should not do to another . . . No one had better stand up and tell me that I need a God to tell me that." C-Hitch is awesome.
ameliaparvaneh 7 months ago
Chris actually contradicts himself around 1:40. He uses a quote from Rabbi Hillel about the search for truth saying, "The task may be unobtainable, but that doesn't mean you can give it up." But then immediately says that the Golden Rule is sinister because even if you always try for it, you'll always fall short. So why is it noble to search for truth and always fall short, and stupid to try to love others as you love yourself?
jrodc22 7 months ago
@jrodc22 He seems to advocate the silver rule, he just means in the religious context of sin, you could never truly treat another as if he was yourself.
Coolguyrob2006 7 months ago
@jrodc22 In the first case, you strive to be your best self by setting the compass for truth, even though you realize that it's an ideal; thus, you feel good about trying, and you are flexible enough to revise your definition of truth with evidence. Note: he thinks that it "may" be unobtainable. In the second case, you are commanded by a divine authority to "love others as you love yourself," which is impossible and can't be revised with evidence, and you are an enslaved sinner forever.
ameliaparvaneh 7 months ago
i agree with Hitchens---enlightenment is the ability to openly pusue truth----rather than being a grail of knowledge that is to be attained
TheGreatDeciever55 7 months ago
3:16 CH actually gives a cue for the audience to applaud him, and they do.
angryafghan 7 months ago
I will say that of all the opponents I have seen from the theists Peter Hitchens has been certainly the most eloquent and coherent. Small suprise he shares a chromosome or two with Dr./Prof. Hitchens.
deathtoodin21 10 months ago
Chris BRAVO!!!!
Democrit1to9Freud 11 months ago
Morality and ethics is taught in the family and in schools. Chinese and Japanese had morality and ethics before Christians arrived. Greeks and Romans invented morality and ethics by analyzing the ways of their own societies and by collecting the behavioural rules that would be less harmful for their peoples. Morality of medieval Christians or medieval Muslims are not superior to the ones of Chinese or Japanese, or Greeks or Romans.
Democrit1to9Freud 11 months ago
Its a pity christopher cant run for presidency.
funkyleaf 1 year ago
I'm in general agreement with Christopher on religion-but he's full of shit on his comments on the green movement. The green movement is backed up and informed by science-the exact opposite of religion.
hugoegbert79 1 year ago
@hugoegbert79 Thats not the point he was makeing...............at all.
Dillingerman1 1 year ago
@hugoegbert79 I wouldn't say he's full of shit. Some elements of the green movement are quasi-religious, which I think testifies to the human susceptibility to religious forms of thinking - somehow we always fall into this rut, unless we guard and gird ourselves with rationality. That said, there is scientific consensus on the subject of global warming, and denying that is the same as denying evolution or gravity. I really hope Hitchens would agree, or else he's finally wrong about something.
josenros 9 months ago
@josenros your claim of scientific consensus could not be farther from the true. That school of thought is rapidly being debunked,disproven,and abandoned.It is nothing more than another attempt at controlling the masses by fear of apocalypse. Just another false religion brought to you courtesy of the Rev. Gore!
NOMADdaf 8 months ago
@NOMADdaf Do you know of a single scientific body or academy of national or international standing that has maintained a dissenting opinion?
josenros 8 months ago
And they're available in fine book stores everywhere...
Metamorphosis20091 1 year ago
C Hitchens is one of the greatest speakers of our generation. I agree with his comments on the green movements to an extent but i dont think he is right by calling it religion-like, after all the affects are real. Carbon dioxide = greenhouse gas, Alot of greenhouse gas = Venus. its blindingly obvious.
LowleyUK 1 year ago
it must be hard for people debating christopher, having their asses kicked time and time again...
I was a bit disappointed when he didn't destroy Peters points about iraq. I could have done better, with half of the stuff being CHRIS's points. Perhaps it is just because he's his brother.
exodus3115 1 year ago
@exodus3115 I thought he did a good job, which points would you emphasise/raise?
LowleyUK 1 year ago
What was the first thing Moses did after he came down from the mound with the commandment "Thy shall not kill"?
zackindy312 1 year ago
@zackindy312
'All of you kill yourselves, for your profanity'
Oh the hypocrisy of the Bible.
BelfastAtheist 1 year ago
What the heck is Peter talking about when he sais it's WORSE for someone's political life to deny global warming than it is to publicly denounce god? How many US senators deny global warming? How many deny God? Is he willfully ignorant or just stupid?
MrCattlehunter 1 year ago
Peter's "England not intervening in USA politics since 200 years ago" line wasn't even clever, much less funny, and certainly isn't true. You get the impression that no one would know Peter existed if he weren't the younger sibling of a living lion. He reminds of Christopher Buckley compared to William F. Buckley, Jr.
vau0807 1 year ago
5:57 " Barack Obama senator Obama has been caught in some big mouth sinister wind bag rock n roll horror show church on the south side" Christopher Hitchens. HA HA have to agree with him there a lot of churches are becoming a rock n roll freak show
outbackcafe 1 year ago
The thing that has always bothered me about Chris Hitchens is his chronic misuse of history & the habit of giving examples of proof without an explanation. He is the king of insubstantiality and contextual manipulation. This is sadly missed by his gullible followers that are wowed by his superb debating skills and fast wit. He's fast on his feet and because of this ability, is seen as winning the argument when it is simply a diversion. Peter is as smart as Chris, just not as good a debater.
marshall1963 1 year ago
Interesting that most of the people who dont clap christopher are really old and, to put it bluntly, closer to death.
herepooch 1 year ago
It is also interesting that those who did clap christopher abort their children, and if they don't they only have one or two kids anyways. While there are many Christian families with over twelve kids. To put it bluntly, once your generation dies out, there won't be many atheists left, when you look at it as a percentage.
Thehuskarl 1 year ago
@Thehuskarl this is assuming that atheists only come from an atheist family. which is disproved by the two brothers standing in front of you in this video..
tenley1234 1 year ago
@tenley1234 "I had some good reasons for refusing some of it. My mistake was to dispense with it all, indiscriminately. I hope to show that one of the things I was schooled in was not, in fact, religion, but a strange and vulnerable counterfeit of it -- a counterfeit that can be detected and rejected while yet leaving the genuine truths of Christianity undamaged" (pp. 10-11)." ~Peter Hitchens, the rage against God
Thehuskarl 1 year ago
@tenley1234 I think we all know that there are many more people who tell pollsters they are Christians than there are people who actually believe the primary doctrines taught in the Bible. The former are the type who will have children who turn away from the faith, the latter are those who see children as a blessing, and train them up in the way they should go.
Thehuskarl 1 year ago
@Thehuskarl if that were true the number of atheists would be decreasing, it isn't. Then the religious have never been especially gifted mathematically; their inability to see the problem with 1 000 000 year old fossils and a 10 000 yr old biblical world being a classic example,
Skipissatan 1 year ago
@Skipissatan LOL, actually the problem is with the radio isotope dating method. There are many other methods of measuring time which have been overlooked by scientists because it goes against their view of biology and theology. One of these methods is the amount of dust gathered on the moon.
What you said is kind of like saying "the atheist has always been prone to make generalizations."
FYI I'm 17 y/o and I am taking Calculus 3 at my local community college. :p
Thehuskarl 1 year ago
@Thehuskarl are you suggesting that we have the rate of decay of Carbon-14 wrong? and do you have any evidence to support this? if so you should probably bring it forward and land yourself a nice physics professorship in the process... why would I conceivably need to know how old you are or what courses you do at college?
Skipissatan 1 year ago
@Skipissatan The ONLY reason I brought that up was because you said that "the religious have never been especially gifted mathematically." PS. where did you get the word "gifted" from? Probably religion... :p (yes, that also is a joke...)
I am not saying we have the decay rate of carbon -14 wrong, only that there may be other variables which affect it's rate which we haven't discovered yet. Another possibility was that God created carbon-14 with and apparent "age"
Thehuskarl 1 year ago
@Thehuskarl but the decay rate is observable, you can prove it by taking objects of known age (like a dated book or tombstone) and examining the C-14 content. No serious physicist thinks that the process is anything other than reliable. This leaves your argument as "maybe got is messing with us". This is both incredibly vain as why would a god care what we think? and bizarre as why would god want to trick us? what kind of god would that be and why would you follow him? it makes no sense.
Skipissatan 1 year ago
@Skipissatan I'm afraid you've made a bit of a mistake. No serious geologist uses C-14 to prove the earth is millions of years old. The furthest back it can "date" is 62,000 years. So how come we sometimes find C-14 which can't be older than 62,000 years inside of rocks which are radio-isotope dated to millions of years?
Maybe the decay rate can change, or they didn't all start at 100%.
@vau0807 I would prefer being called an utterly stupid Christian. Spam on, if that's your life's work.
Thehuskarl 1 year ago
@Thehuskarl You do understand the concept of a half life? all c-14 won't be gone after 62 000 years, just a high proportion of it making the process less reliable. In any case my argument still stands as at 62 000 years old the world is still much older than the 6 000 years stipulated in the bible.
Skipissatan 1 year ago
@Thehuskarl Are you a smart and clever troll or a desperate and utterly stupid christian? You just suggested on a public forum that god created rocks that were millions of years old at the point of their creation. And Santa Claus can magically appear in houses without chimneys.
vau0807 1 year ago
Comment removed
nr900 2 years ago
Did anyone else spot C. Hitchens complete contradiction when he states that Truth may be an unattainable goal but we should seek it nevertheless followed by ridiculing the notion that we should always try to love others as ourselves even though it's an unattainable goal? Wow, what hypocrisy!
zootsoot2006 2 years ago
Bull one is worth seeking where as the latter is simply another wrong religious backwards thinking way of trying to get people to behave.
elfred1980 2 years ago
Wow
That guy is beyond smart. (the one on the left)
lee155912000 2 years ago
Also, the fact there ARE very moral atheists who haven't even looked at a holy book and weren't brought up or surrounded by religion again, perfectly proves that our morality is built-in. Our morality has evolved from society but a lot is also built in.
AtheistMovement 2 years ago 4
For example. You don't need a fucking book / imagenary friend to tell you not to murder another human. This is 100% built-in as a species which killed its own would not last as long as we have.
Given our possible savage nature and intelligence, then we would of wiped each other out if that were the case. It's a natural feeling not to do so not only for evolutionary / gene sense but we have a natural love for other living things as we SHARE the same DNA - FACT.
AtheistMovement 2 years ago
So we have a feeling of natural similarity. There is nothing religious or supernatural about that.
AtheistMovement 2 years ago
Athiestmovement,
I would argue that your line of thinking is very much based in a fantasy world much like you view religious people's believes.
hypermonkey24 1 year ago
@AtheistMovement
True. During the bronze age the moral codes and laws were mixed with religious beliefs. They were written down in religious books instead of special moral- or law books. Morality can, and DOES, exist without religion.
Morality is cultural and common sense. A lot of it isn't even written down in the Bible or in law books.
Gumbypotty 2 years ago
Indeed.
If we did actually base our morality on religion, we wouldn't of got this far.
Or we certainly wouldn't be living in societies as civilized and free as ours.
In fact most of the wastelands of this planet are because of the fact that they do live under the constant assumption of god. Parties of god destroy nations, not liberate them.
AtheistMovement 2 years ago
"natural love for other living things as we SHARE the same DNA - FACT. "
What the fuck are you talking about?
This inherent love that you talk of does not exist only in your own warped mind.
We have had like 10 genocides in the last 100 yearrs with the body counts in the hundreds of millions. We routinely destroy the life of the unborn even at birth.
To speak of this love is silly and nonsense.
hypermonkey24 1 year ago
Not true, genocide has occurred primarily because of memes(ideas) of a viral nature perpetuated usually by one person (ie, a dictator like Mugabe, Stalin, or Hitler.) It IS in our DNA to be altruistic especially to kin. Ideas can both hurt and help us. Ideas usually hurt us when they are not challenged regularly and reasonably. Name one genocidal dictatorship today or in the past in which challenging the authority was not actively punished and or suppressed.
MakeshiftEstablished 1 year ago
"It IS in our DNA to be altruistic especially to kin"
Is this scientifically proven dude?
Explain this in better detail please.
"challenging the authority was not actively punished and or suppressed. "
agreed. However, one must look the what preceded a dictator taking over...
Why wasn't the dictator put down early? Were the people asleep? What corruption took place that made a country vulnerable to a dictator?
hypermonkey24 1 year ago
So you've never heard the term "kin selection?" There is evidence to support it. Look it up. Some people are skeptical of course. But then again some people are skeptical about evolution itself. I would say the debate on whether kin selection in it's current state is true is a good one and should be continued. We shouldn't, due to biases however, say that morality couldn't have come from evolution and kin selection. I'm sorry but we just aren't as special of a species as we think.
MakeshiftEstablished 1 year ago
I'll take back it being just one person who perpetuates. Wherever it starts it is usually perpetuated by a smallish group of people at first and through mechanisms easily identified including propaganda and force the rest are inculcated.
MakeshiftEstablished 1 year ago
Makeshift,
your argument seems to be that altruism is the natural state of man and ideas only fuck it up.
OKKKKK.
Dude look at the animal kingdom.
CHimps are brutal to other chimps.
IT IS PURE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.
Would you consider it moral for a male lion to kill lion cubs not of its gene?
WE as humans are not supposed to do that.
hypermonkey24 1 year ago
No, I'm just saying that "bad" ideas make it possible for it to become a massive fuck up. The opposite is also true. "Good" ideas can make it possible for a massive success (ie medicine, mechanical engineering etc.) I'm sorry, but we simply wouldn't have lasted this long, 100,000 years plus, if we had gone on with the perception that killing people indiscriminately and constantly was ok. We're a social species that evolved to work together for the most part to survive. It's not black and white.
MakeshiftEstablished 1 year ago
The problem with that type of thinking, "that it's 100% built in" is that it's not. Chimpanzees, for instance, will go out in groups and target individuals from other groups and kill them. Humans will do the same thing for whatever reason. It isn't always religion but can be any group mentality that doesn't have a murder proof structure (Janism for instance) It's more complicated than JUST saying it's religion. It's the entire way of thinking that needs to be understood. Then we can change it.
MakeshiftEstablished 1 year ago
Dude you can't even define morality yet you claim to be moral?
It never ceases to amaze me how athiests can champion morality without the means to define it.
What is BUILT IN?
By your logic parents don't need to raise their children..just provide for them..they will figure it out on their own.
hypermonkey24 1 year ago
It is in fact best if children learn morality "on their own." Simply being told does not satisfy the brain's lust for experiential learning. If children practice reciprocal altruism they learn that it is beneficial and will keep doing it.
MakeshiftEstablished 1 year ago 7
Peter Hitchens is a moron, not even a close match for his brilliant brother.
AtheistMovement 2 years ago 12
@AtheistMovement That wasn't my impression at all.
MPaulHolmes 6 months ago
@AtheistMovement for a guy who has the name "AthiestMovment" as his account name, I guess you would expect that kind of statement of bias.
Sumoto999 5 months ago
@Sumoto999 Well surely you come down on either side. Unless you're an agnostic.
If you happen to be religious then I could say the exact same of you in reverse.
I don't hold or pertain to bias either, as that's illogical. My only 'bias' is logic. But logic by definition holds no bias as it's just truth and truth is as it is, regardless of who's saying it or how it's presented.
So if Peter Hitchens was saying things that were fundamentally true, he wouldn't be a moron. But he doesn't, so he is
AtheistMovement 5 months ago
The golden rule is not a religious idea. It is simply putting yourself in others shoes before you act, and that is the secularist's morality. That is my "moral compass".
automaticSOM 2 years ago
Chris' point on the green movement is scarily accurate.
nicky120791 2 years ago 4
why dont anyone talk of the human ways of reproducing this seems to be a force we havent come close to master and yet and the root of many many problems usually of moral kinds.
pornswordtobacco 2 years ago
Im struggling to read your comment without punctuation, but are you referring to sex?
waldoistwisted 2 years ago
Yeah, people fuck around and have kids like there is no next day. The big question today is not faith its the right to reproduce. I think we need to put the parenting back into the fucking. Peter said something about we need religion for the poor people or the young kids in the ghettos, well I thought they needed smart and nice parents.
pornswordtobacco 2 years ago 2
Or better education about contraceptives?
waldoistwisted 2 years ago
Is Chris Hitchens a closet deist? 4:39
Stevo6452 2 years ago
Stevo6452
Dont twist people's statements. He said he wouldnt possibly go further than deism.
automaticSOM 2 years ago
Comment removed
Stevo6452 2 years ago
Twisting his statement was not my intent, it was just speculation based on what he said. Sorry if it caused any offence.
Stevo6452 2 years ago
No offense taken. I just thought it was an untrue statement so i replied. Its fine though
automaticSOM 2 years ago
It was never a statement. I never presented it as a fact, it was merely speculation based on the fact that he said he WOULDNT go FURTHER then deism, which suggests he COULD ACCEPT deism. If my original comment was intended as a "matter of fact" statement, I wouldnt have ended it with a question mark. You then twisted MY comment.
Stevo6452 2 years ago
Im sorry if I twisted your statement. By the way though, to answer your question. Christopher Hitchens said in another debate that " I hope I have already shown how ridiculous deism is". My guess is that he is not a closeted deist.
automaticSOM 2 years ago
Hitchens is amazing-
No one can even start to debate the war on Iraq without discussing the relationship of Saddam and the Bush Administration- or without discussing how Saddam came to power.
We cannot begin a debate from the middle- lets start from the begining- the assassination of the Former King of Iraq. How was US relation with Iraq in the 80s? 90s? Was US supporting Saddam during attack kuwait? iran?
Lets start from the begining! Thus we should not build on false premises.
valerienanh 2 years ago
I got goose bumps watching this video this christopher hitchens Is a brillant man. Tax the churches to extiction I say.
DjetGlea 2 years ago
He's more eloquent when he's drunk than I am when I'm sober.
TheWorldsStage 2 years ago 65
@TheWorldsStage he's more eloquent drunk than HE is sober.
TheCarydal 1 year ago
@TheWorldsStage He's probably more eloquent when he's drunk than he is sober too
protorobsmos 1 year ago
@TheWorldsStage I think you could confidently speak for most of the planet with that statement.
comanchio1976 9 months ago
@TheWorldsStage Agreed.
writersblock26 5 months ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Irishmauddib,
Firstly, what is fatuous is an inability of some to understand semantic rules of speech. The positive and the negative, by definition are not the same anymore than the inverse and converse are the same.
If you can't decode something as simple as the difference between two opposing statements, I simply cannot help you.
Secondly, what is really fatuous is someone who uses the term "maud dib" when viewing a debate about the Iraq War.
Do you know the origin of Herbert's usage?
Roguewarrior100 2 years ago
I have no respect for someone who is so scared of me they reply to me with a NEW COMMENT instead of with the REPLY button in order to avoid me getting an email to tell me there is a reply waiting for me.
If you want a reply from me then reply to the comment you are discussing with me. Until then I will not pander to your cowardly hiding.
irishmauddib 2 years ago
You are indeed totally wrong here. You can describe the EXACT same thing in negative and positive terms. Regardless of which youre using its entirely the same thing. Therefore as I said to claim that one person invented something because he stole an idea and expressed it in the opposite terms as the first person is just.... pathetic.
And yes, I am perfectly aware of the the etymology behind the name mauddib. If you have a problem with it then you have a problem with it. I dont.
irishmauddib 2 years ago
irishmauddib is in fact totally right here. and for roguewarrior to respond with a statement like "nah, positive and negative are different" just goes to show how far he/she has missed the point.
dinabio1 2 years ago
2:23 - 2:55 Says it all.
TheFragile89 3 years ago 2
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Christopher misspeaks when he states Hillel wrote the Golden Rule. Hillel's taching was "what is repulsive to do you should no do to another" is not the Golden Rule.
The Golden Rule deals in the positive, not the negative.
Christopher is shallow and sodden far too much of the time. Imagine if he had not addled his brain with drink.
Roguewarrior100 3 years ago
What a fatuous statement to make. It is the same thing. Whether you phrase something in the positive or the negative is meaningless once the meaning is the same. "Do not stand on the table" and "Stand anywhere but on the table" are the same thing, simply because one is in the negative changes the meaning not at all.
Just because someone can take an idea and change how it is phrased does not mean they authored it.
irishmauddib 2 years ago 3
Your a pretty big idiot.
So if the point is made in positive instead of negative its a different point?
Amazing.
Do not hurt others.
Ensure you cause no pain in others.
You fail.
lord69z 2 years ago 3
Hitchens is so right
aweiss 3 years ago 33
@aweiss
In the case of this debate, your comment is spot on!
babyshambler 1 year ago
@aweiss lol
zauii89 1 year ago
@aweiss Which one are you refering to?!! :)
hyperstone6 1 year ago
GW is pure hysteria. A doom cult like christianity. Hopefully won't take 2000 yrs to start eradicating it.
AlanCom1 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Professor Hitchens.... Is you penis real & if so how do you determine it? WITH A MICROSCOPE!
valerienanh 3 years ago
Wow, I am curious, what does it feel like to have so little to say, so few points to make, that all you can do instead is talk about someones penis instead? IS this really the only comment you can make after all your years of life, experience, education and upbringing? This is what the sum total of all that added together is worth? This is how you choose to represent yourself? For shame sir, for shame.
irishmauddib 2 years ago
I was making fun of the question "is truth real" because I was kinda pissed that this question was asked- i felt like more relevant questions could have been asked.
valerienanh 2 years ago
Your idiocy is almost intolerable.
TheNinjaBoy7 2 years ago
Ninja-
and why do u say that?!
valerienanh 2 years ago
Well, anyone resorting to Dick jokes looses any respect for me. And more importantly insulting someone's appearance is even more crude.
TheNinjaBoy7 2 years ago
If your Prefrontal Cortex and the rest of your cortex was minutely functioning, then you would have understood that comment. Moreover, if you read my comment right after it, you would have KNOWN what my comment was referring to. And 9 other people would have known as well. idiots.
get off his nuts.
valerienanh 2 years ago
TheNinjaGirl7:
Did i lose more of your valuable respect because I said nuts? lol oh ya... and the prefrontal thing- i gotta give it up to Hitchens- it feels good to say it ;) he mentions it in most of his debates- especially religious ones
And just since we're on the topic, if our pre-frontal was any bigger there would be even more violence (agression and self-interest) in this world- prolly would have eliminated our species long time ago.
valerienanh 2 years ago
Quite to the contrary, it was. Your jokes however, aren't remotely funny and it merely highlights your idiocy and childish nature entirely. If by some off chance I misunderstood that comment made by you, then I'll apologize in advance for my having not known-but in due respect it's unnecessary to resort to these childish theatrics.
That aside, Hitchens is a remarkably intelligent man; and I hold but the uppermost respect for him and his integrity.
Cheers.
TheNinjaBoy7 2 years ago
Yes, I agree he is very inteligent & I respect him for that. However, if he wasn't on the government's payroll & so in line with NWO, then I would respect him MUCH more.
You're probably going to come back & say he is not & ask me for proof.
There's a lot of proof out there-even w/this Bullshit internet that is flooded with so much bullshit information. But unfortunately, the so-called "reliable" sources are controled. Anyway-just look into it-OR if u want, ill paste u something.lol
valerienanh 2 years ago
oh ya... and now im waiting for those nine people... give me their opinion again..lol
valerienanh 2 years ago
The question of: "Is there truth real and how do you determine that?"
What a stupid question and stupider answer by Hitchens. The answer is obvious.
Suppose NO, truth isn't real, and that's the truth. Then there is real truth. So therefore we know that there is real truth, and we know that by deductive reasoning.
That young man in the suit is a moron, and Hitchens isn't always the brightest bulb in the room.
highwind8124 3 years ago
Not sure you got the question. Was actually decent, although way beyond the scope of the discussion, I thought.
brek5 3 years ago 2
Theres a redhead that would get it at 6:06. She looks a bit bored mind...
Stevo6452 3 years ago
Christopher is awesome, though I very much disagree with him on religion. Peter does a decent job of defense, but he sounds frightened at some points - I would to, if I had to argue with Christopher, and especially if he was my big brother!!! Still..an amazing debate..
reboshima 3 years ago 2
how do you disagree with him on religion just wondering
rosepetal34 3 years ago
I think that having faith in a creator is defendable by reason and logic, through use of empirical observations of the natural world. He would call me an idiot (if he were being nice!) for thinking so. He's still awesome.
reboshima 3 years ago 2
Umm..What empirical observations are you talking about?..Logic and reason fly in the face of religion 90+% of the time
Dgc2003 3 years ago 3
what empirical evidence?
Illiknight40 3 years ago
What empirical observations do you mean?
thescottishJimmy 3 years ago
Sorry, not seen any of the evidence of which you speak, and I have been looking hard for it.
hackenbollox 3 years ago
christopher is impressing me more and more, even though we have differences of opinion.
tskaface 3 years ago 6
What's the point of debating with godiots?
manco82 3 years ago
"What's the point of debating with godiots? "
If you don't they start to feel even more righteous and take over the world.
MrFacet 3 years ago 5
What's funny about this is that Peter pointed out that atheists borrow from theists. At 2:30, Christopher did exactly that by borrowing from Hillel.
ballantrae101 3 years ago
What it comes down to is that if he believes you cannot attain truth he should sit down and say, I don't know any of the answers to your questions so I cannot answer them. I shall venture guesses, but yours are as good as mine.
Moroni1221 3 years ago
"To the question of "is truth real" Dr./Prof Hitchens replies, it is unattainable"
His words were "may be unatainable".
There's a big difference not "it is unatainable" and "maybe unatainable".
What he's saying is that it is important to search for the truth and though you "may" never get all the way, you will learn as you go.
If you compare this to science.
Science does not claim to have all the answers but in it's search for the truth it has broadened our understanding.
Secular8 3 years ago
To the question of "is truth real" Dr./Prof Hitchens replies, "it is unattainable"... Am I the only one who sees the irony in this statement?
He is stating his decided view of truth that "it is "unattainable" and in so doing states that he has attained it. What he should say is that "It is unattainable, i think"
Moroni1221 3 years ago
Whats with this stooge prancing about saying that galloway owns them both? Galloway praised Saddam Hussein and makes apologies for terrorists. Anyone who can support the disgusting practitioners of suicide bombing is either evil or too stupid to know of what the speak.
JACKtheRIPP3R189 3 years ago 6
this audience is asking some hugely significant philosohical questions! good stuff though.
barry06 3 years ago 3
George Galloway "owns" nooone.
He loves Hamas, Hezbollah, Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaida.
But those organisations and people are not fascist, eh?
Idiot.
Clemetsson 3 years ago
George Galloway is our version of Comical Ali.
aladon1965 3 years ago 3
This comment has received too many negative votes show
Christopher is a fascist, and Peter is only marginally better. George Galloway owns them both.
NukeFascistAmerica 3 years ago
NukeFascistAmerica - Why have you given yourself a username that ensures nothing you have to say could ever possibly be taken seriously?
I85PIES 3 years ago 6
you might want to go back and read before making a statement like that, but to suggest so would, I suppose label me a "zionist Neocon crusader"
chachieb 3 years ago
NukeFascistAmerica - I hope you're some sort of Stephen Colbert-esque irony. If not, you must be so unbelievably stupid that you can't realise that you yourself are a fascist and warmonger (another word I expect you throw around carelessly) by wanting to "nuke" a democratic country (America). Basically, read a wider range of newspapers and stop believing everything Galloway says just because he makes a few cute jibes - he's a CRAP debater.
grayabc1234 3 years ago
NukeFacistAmerica,
I hope your statement wasn't serious, I truly do--because if it were remotely serious, I'd feel the uppermost sympathy for you.
TheNinjaBoy7 2 years ago
ha i like his description of rev wright!
revengeofcleveland 3 years ago
is truth real? what a question!
TranceDevotee 3 years ago
Its getting intense!
garvess 3 years ago
"5;54...Senator Obama has benn caught in some bigmouth sinister windbag rock and rock horror church on the south side. Religion is poisoning our election..."
Never has a more truth been told.
trustinscience 3 years ago
At least he's not proud of it. McCain, for instance, sees being praised by cranks like Rod Parsley and John Hagee as a virtue; Obama is actually embarassed by his former ties with a nutball church. That is, as far as presidential candidates go, good.
robh00fd 3 years ago
True enough but Obama had the conversation with the reverend of that twisted church saying that he might have to badmouth him if word ever got out. This makes me wonder whether his shame is genuine. Chances are if they are running for president then they are an arrogant putz.
JACKtheRIPP3R189 3 years ago
His assertion that the philosophy 'what I don't want done to me I will not do to others' is superior to 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself' shows his lack of understanding of some fundamental tenets of Christianity. Something I consider perfectly acceptable another person may find totally reprehensible and it is only in love that such a consideration will affect my decisions.
javalw 3 years ago
its funny how nobody wants to ask peter anything
ridiculousness25 3 years ago 3
I liked the way the subject changed completely to global warming. Perhaps i have a superior memory than most mortals :)
klindred 3 years ago
win32...all i am saying is...this is not Hitch at his best...one scotch too many...he is impared...I still agree 100% with his message and his arguements...just would like to see him a bit less impared...it's embarassing for him...
jimboforreason 3 years ago
Watch Hichens Vs Galoway. he puts himself deep in Hitchens.
geraboldy 3 years ago
He puts himself deep in Hitchens? I hope Galloway washed it after being stuck up Saddam's posterior all these years.
gbjornstrand 3 years ago 4
a good thing no. but no corruption as any Western Leaders record.. anyway the man needs no defendent he is one of very few great politicians fighting for human rights and against this illegal war for oil. now go fuck yourself
geraboldy 3 years ago
I won't argue with a vulgar little cretin like you. By the way, Galloway is spelt with two 'l's and there is such a thing as punctuation, at least in the English language.
gbjornstrand 3 years ago 2
LOL!!!
BryanAJParry 3 years ago
PETER keeps GOING on how BAD UK is atm. I THINK he just LIVES in a BAD area of town tbh.
xxxaabbccxxx 3 years ago
tbh, I just think Peter Hitchens is a traditional, bland, "the world is falling apart/moral standards are evaporating" conservative, who more than likely lives in a rather nice part of town.
BryanAJParry 3 years ago
Peter Hitchens is ugly.
mateyboy07 3 years ago
Probably more handsome than you.
TheNinjaBoy7 2 years ago
The Golden Rule is unattainable? According to St. Christopher of the Hitchens?
Roguewarrior100 3 years ago
Hmm, no, Chris Hitchens was quite clear, so I don't understand why you couldn't follow him. He said not doing to others what you wouldn't want done to you (technically the silver rule, but anyway, he is in favour of the golden rule elsewhere) is moral and doable, but that LOVING YOUR ENEMY is not.Loving one's enemy is not the golden rule. The golden rule is "do unto others as you would have them do unto you".
BryanAJParry 3 years ago 3
beebobox...I am a huge fan of Hitchens and his work...that said, this is a very weak performance on his part...he is not as sharp as he usually is...easy on the narrow-minded turd of a person stuff, bro...let's not stoop to the level of the devout and become intolerant of criticism...this is not Hitchens at his best...still love him though...
jimboforreason 3 years ago
christopher...one scotch too many
jimboforreason 3 years ago
yah and as we all know alcoholics are always wrong and evil men
oh wait, you're a narrowminded turd of a person that fails to see good argument in the face of moronic argument (presented by his ignoramus brother called peter).
beebobox 3 years ago
The environmental movement bases predictions on observations. Like science. People don't like to hear that. But wanting facts to be not there will not make them go away.
If the media only show the warnings, not the content part of the environmental organisations, that's a problem you have to talk to the media about. Because the research, the positive ideas, they are there. Just them people in it may not be as famous as Al Gore.
MrFacet 3 years ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
If only Hitchens was a tad more modest and humble, how much more acceptable would his opinion be? With an ego that cannot be quenched, it is no surprise to me he became an American. No Brit audience would have put up with his arrogance.Americans by and large are sheep. Certainly he was more persuasive than his brother. However, if I were walking down a dark alley and was just mugged, I'd say his brother might stop and offer to help, I doubt Hitchen's ego would permit him. I'd vote for the human.
madmolecule65 3 years ago
madmolecule - You do C. Hitchens a diservice when you presume he wouldn't help you if you were being mugged. Hitchens and Ayaan Hirsi Ali both give a talk once(she is a former Muslim who now has to have bodyguards because of threats against her life) and Hitchens said that if anyone tried anything he would gladly step in to shield her as he hoped everyone in the room would.
mrjamesgoodier 3 years ago
Thank you for your comments. Ayaan Hirsi Ali,is a cultured, elegant , articulate Woman with compassion. Hitchens is an egocentric , self absorbed individual , who bilittles his opnonents to satsify some inner inadequacy of his. He covers his audience with the cloak of condecension only to make him appear supreme, while all the time he is being snide.He will spring to Ayaan's defence only because he admires and agrees with her for what she says, not for what she is.Herein lies his dishonesty.
madmolecule65 3 years ago
Hitchens self-centeredness doesn't bother us. He has the right to care about himself as long as he doesn't break the law in doing it.
And Ayaan isn't entirely a bleeding heart martyr either. She still has joy in her own life.
And Hitchens belittles because it's funny.
highwind8124 3 years ago 3
I know he's a bit arrogant but thats part of his personality. A bit oscar wilde-ish. I love his personality, its adorable even though I don't agree with his stance on the war.
legalearthangel 3 years ago 3
He I think Hitchens would in fact help if he was able.
HonestDiscussioner 3 years ago
"Love your neighbour as yourself" is impossible. We, like all animals, have an inbuilt survivial instinct. Perhaps there are situations when we will put others above ourselves (and I can think of hundreds, not just the big ones like parents dying for their children or soldiers dying to defend the liberty of their homeland). But essentially, day be day, we love ourselve smost and perhaps should until we can merge our bodies and midns into a joint entity - perhaps in 1,000's of years to come.
victimlesscriminal 3 years ago
damn he definately has the crowd. Only Hitchens seems to get most of the questions.
dragoonthief 3 years ago 2