Hitchens on the morals of an atheist (part 1/2)

Christopher Hitchens talks about his book "God is not great" and why we don't need a god to be moral.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Christopher
• Hitchens
• atheism
• atheist
• religion
• god
• is
• not
• great
• morals

[LordBLB]

Calm down. I'm not angry or starting a fight. I'm just talking here. I appologize if I came off as angry or something. That's not the case.

"if God exists"

There's your problem though. First, you must prove that there is a God. And IF you manage THAT. You still must prove which God it is. Then we can decide about the morals. Until you've proven God, and which God, morals are Man Made. It's that simple. The burden of proof is on the theist... The atheist just sees no proof... YET.

[houstonTx457000]

interviewer is abit fucking patronizing

[Otaconsps]

@houstonTx457000 like when he says....I can see I'm bringing you along Christopher.

[ZomBiezley]

@Texasjim2007 when the pope visited africa, he told them to NOT use condoms. how do you tell an AIDS ravaged nation to NOT use condoms?

[Pyro25892]

@Texasjim2007 Human sacrifice. Scientoligists not seeking help for psychological issues. Children born into poverty because the church doesn't allow contraception. People harming themselves (self-flaggelation and crucifixion) in the name of God. People killing others in "holy wars". Also, crime is often more common in low-income areas as is also religion. Relgious people are just as susceptible to hurting others as atheists. We're all human.

[Texasjim2007]

If trusting atheists makes such great sense, why did 60 million Chinese who trusted atheist Mao and 20 million Russians who trusted atheist Stalin get all there food stolen and murdered if they objected to being robbed? Why are 25 million dead of AIDS when atheists told us sex was safe and Christians were just being prudish?

[beest909]

@houstonTx457000 I noticed that too. I expected better from Stanford.

[nactan]

As modern psychology has shown, human reason is far less "rational" than idealists would have us believe. Empiricism doesn't require this sort of Get Out of Jail Free ontological justification for reason itself.

[nactan]

Whether God exists or not, if you harm others and live a sloppy life, then you are a bad person with sloppy habits. Where does Jesus define what sort of lifestyle is moral and what isn't? Oh right, if you pray, then you Will Know. What the bible says is that it's moral to sell your daughters into slavery. Can't we just bypass the praying and bible study part, and simply reflect on what sort of behavior is ethical?

[nactan]

@yaya52 Believe it or not, murder is wrong according to every religion on the planet, including Islam. Murder is, by definition, immoral killing. The difference is that Islamic civilization never underwent a renaissance and has been left in the dark ages. Like medieval Christians, they still think killing is negotiable, as Carlin used to say. Even Buddhists, whose religion forbids murder more explicitly than any other, used to kill lots of people before science slackened our resource constraint.

[psk6565]

@LordBLB Alright, not in the mood? No problem.

[LordBLB]

@psk6565

Told you I wasn't in the mood. Headache.

By 'impersonal something' I need do nothing more than point at the 'Singularity' described in the 'Big Bang'. It may very well be that the universe ITSELF is eternal, and simply recycles itself over and over. But they DO think, that OUTSIDE of said 'singularity', nothing existed. All matter, energy, and time, was contained within this 'singularity'. Beyond that, I make no claims as to what existed.