Hitchens: What would religion have to do to be a good thing?

Excerpt of a debate with Tony Blair in Canada, November 2010.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Christopher
• Hitchens
• Tony
• Blair
• Debate
• Religion

[hongyewu]

Get well Chris! the world needs you =)

[s10m0t10n]

@disciple666slayer Religions have been at the root of more human deaths than anything else in recorded history and will continue to be so as long as one group believes it has the only true faith. And there lies the problem - faith - no evidence needed to prove your/their 'superiority', just a belief. The only thing that differs is the name of the deity because all religions think theirs is the religion of peace and love and theirs is the only way to paradise.

[sinedeocodex]

Why do they keep calling him 'Chris'? He was VERY adamant on his name being 'CHRISTOPHER'. I guess I should let it pass for it identifies the real listeners from the wannabes.

[housesoccer]

miss you chris

[SlapPopStacy]

@hongyewu :(

[grubelsucht]

Superstitious idolatry still wreaks fear in weak minds unable to think without direction from others. Carrying the notion that supernal intelligence records human movement and awaits death to reward or punish for all eternity is not just beyond logic but complacently stupid and does not deserve debate. Brave thinkers of the past who rejected religious superstition created the world in which we live longer and better today and deserve our acknowledgment, not ancient tribal savages.

[MaskedMarvyl]

If any religious doctrine tries to back up its spiritual claims or edicts with miracles, rewards for obeying or torture for disobeying, it makes its words immediately suspect. If the words have worth in themselves, if they contain truth and wisdom, there is no need for miracles or a God to back it up.

In which case it isn't a religion. It's a philosophy.... which on the whole is a much better thing, because it can be debated and challenged without persecution or damnation to hell....

[ricpride]

Yes, Chris is the best person to RIP into that PM. >:) Take that!

[patientthomist]

@linkmymuffin

I like your question and our discussion, by the way. I find you to be more thoughtful than many of the atheists I have spoken with (compliments to you). I think the evidence favours Christianity by a long shot. Buddhism, for example, is not monotheistic, and in that way is in serious error. Islam mistakes what can be known about goodness by reason, substituting unreasonable moral claims without understanding the God communicates primarily through reason. More to say here ...

[linkmymuffin]

@patientthomist I'm going to assume your a Christian based on your Aquinas obsession, in which case I would like to ask you hown do you know that it is the one true faith?

[linkmymuffin]

@patientthomist I don't need to take down the first two "Ways", as they were never built up in the first place. Read them again and try your best to think hard. With which evidence does he claim to know the things he does? "There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible" this should then work for God as well. And has he observed everything in the universe?

[linkmymuffin]

@patientthomist The arrogance of the religious: not only do you claim to know there is God, on the premise that you simply know, you then claim to know how God works. I have read Aquinas and it is complete illogic used only to attempt to justity what he longs to be true. "Since good and being are synonymous" how do you know this? I can easily ramble on about how two abstract concepts are one and the same in order to justify something, but you do not know these things!