Videos and criticisms

[Kelly Jones]

Trevor and Ryan quick-spotted Hitchens' apparently illogical advocacy of hatred of hatred. But they have overlooked the subtle meaning in his message.

Yes, Hitchens is mostly a political man, not a truth man. So there are many ways to improve on his tactics.

But his message is beginner-level, not advanced philosophy. His message is pro-individual rationality. He is just trying to free our thought by pointing to the totalitarian nature of religion. That's all he's doing. So he talks about the malignant and capricious God-figure as that which destroys the freedom of thought in individuals, and which he naturally hates. He talks about sexual repression as a means of instilling a feeling of original sin.

He hates stupidity-bullies. He has a more rational form of hatred.

Stupidity-bullies hate freedom of thought and finding the truth individually. Hitchens hates the destruction of reason, and naturally enough, he hates irrationality in a sharply conscious and clinical way.

I think he's a fantastic power to let loose on the world, because even this level of individual rationality is desperately needed.


[I notice Kevin has responded identically, except I mention Hitchens' advocacy of sexual freedom - which is a major weapon in Hitchens' arsenal. This is an emotional weapon, too.]

[Ryan Rudolph]

Kevin,

Sometimes it's not possible to use reason against your opponent. For example, reason is unlikely to have worked against Hitler.

Yes I agree, but in Hitchen's debate with Al Sharpton, Sharpton makes a good argument against the Iraqi war, he attacks the decision to invade by suggesting that the developed world was not in immediate danger from Saddam Hussein. He had a very weak military, a weak economy, not many allies, as he was isolated, and his chemical weapons program had been shut down for years. And years of economic sanctions and the first Persian gulf war had pretty much crippled his any military might he had.

The intelligence reports gave mixed results, but the bush administration stressed the truth of the empirical evidence to create the argument they wanted the public to react to.

Hitchen’s defense to Sharpton was that Saddam Hussein still had some potential for threatening the west, as he had used chemical weapons against the Kurds once, but in my opinion, it wasn’t enough of a threat to justify such an extreme military campaign – they bombed for weeks, they killed thousands, they invaded with ground troops, and fought insurgents in cities for the last six years as a means to set up a democracy.

In my opinion, such a small threat didn’t warrant such an exaggerated military blow.

Israel is guilty of the same sorts of military decisions, which only infuriates their enemies worse. For instance: When Hezabollah killed two Israeli soldiers, Israel reacted by bombing Lebanon cities for a week straight, destroying millions in Lebanese real estate, and killing hundreds of civilians.

It doesn’t help their cause.

It would be like someone stomping on your foot, and in retaliation, you cut their throat, murder their family, burn down their house, and then skin their cat alive, hanging it on a pole for all the neighbors to see.

In my opinion, warfare shouldn’t incite the worst emotionalism in the opponent. It should be quick, surgical and minimal. A rational commander would strike with the consideration of future karma coming back at him. The perfect killer eliminates his opponent before he even realizes he is in danger, and he kills to kill, not to inflict suffering, and he makes sure the friends of his enemy do not see the act or the affects of the act directly.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Indeed, Kelly. I overlooked who his audience and opponents are. After watching more of his stuff, it's pretty clear from his easy manner that he's not straining himself, and would say what he's saying entirely differently to a less general audience. He has a good grasp of the pyrotechnics needed to blow away non-thinkers -- that these only have to be surface observations is a little depressing.

[Kelly Jones]

Throwing a six with a die is just as likely as throwing a two, but when you highly value the six it can seem pretty darn special when it occurs.

Actually, it doesn't make any sense to talk about probability in regards the existence of this particular known universe, or this particular known existence.

That's the angle I took earlier: only if all the universes are known, can the likelihood of any of them occurring be known. But that's impossible. The "set of all universes" is prone to the same problem as the die (a "set of six sides"). Maybe it has more faces than six. Maybe there is no die.

I had trouble explaining this to my opponent, because he didn't understand the concept of Everything!

[Kevin Solway]

In my opinion, such a small threat didn’t warrant such an exaggerated military blow.

I tend to agree, but I feel that I don't have access to all the information I would like, to be able to make a proper decision.

And perhaps Hitchens is not only concerned about the military threat to the West, but is also concerned about inhuman treatment of Iraqi and Kurdish subjects?

Also, at the time, how strong was the evidence suggesting that Iraq might be developing nuclear weapons? Hussein himself claimed to have such weapons. Such things are difficult to weigh-up, because of lack of information.

It would be like someone stomping on your foot, and in retaliation, you cut their throat

Let's say that someone stamped on your foot every five minutes, in an attempt to ruin your life. After a while, I reckon you might feel like cutting their throat.

[brokenhead]

And perhaps Hitchens is not only concerned about the military threat to the West, but is also concerned about inhuman treatment of Iraqi and Kurdish subjects?

Yes, but why should he care more about the inhuman treatment of Iraqi subjects than about the violent deaths of over 3,000 of America's most able young men and women that were sacrificed to improve that treatment?

Also, at the time, how strong was the evidence suggesting that Iraq might be developing nuclear weapons? Hussein himself claimed to have such weapons. Such things are difficult to weigh-up, because of lack of information.

Not very. Lack of information and poor quality of the information that did exist.

This is a case of a simple-minded man (GWB) who wanted to prove himself in the same grand arena that his old man did as President(s.) "I took care of it fer ya, Pa." He was caught coddling little school children when the WTC came crashing down. His response to invade Iraq in addition to the more reasonably culpable Afghanistan was an emotional one. He is a dim-witted bully. Meanwhile, orchestrating everything behind the scenes lurks Dick Cheyney, making sure his oil buddies get rich (oh my, US rates at the gas pump way over all-time highs?). Cheyney would feed his conscience to a paper-shredder if he could find a way, and if he had a conscience.

Let's say that someone stamped on your foot every five minutes, in an attempt to ruin your life. After a while, I reckon you might feel like cutting their (sic) throat.

That's a good analogy. A normal person might simply move his foot. GWB has done just that - somebody stepped on his toe, so he had the guy's throat cut.

[brokenhead]

Actually, he had somebody else's throat cut. What vision!

[Leyla Shen]

Here's another interesting debate, this time with a rabbi:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=vnMYL8sF7bQ

He's exactly right in his opening statement. (How he managed to sit through an hour plus of this idiocy from the other side is beyond me!)

Beautifully stated, he makes his argument, then, on the pernicious nature of the belief in a creator/supreme being---and that's what the debate becomes about exactly. There is no question when it comes to the existence of such a thing, all this unbeknownst to the deistic and theistic religionists, because the whole flippen point flies right over their heads.

[Kelly Jones]

What I wonder about is why Hitchens describes himself as anti-theist (not atheist) and yet not as anti-deist.

In other words, why wouldn't he also be against belief in a First Cause of Everything that thereafter shows no evidence of itself ?

[Kelly Jones]

I think this might point to the answer on why Hitchens describes himself as anti-theist and not anti-deist:

="Rabbi Shlumey Boteach"]Christopher Hitchens is a secular fundamentalist fanatic. He falls prey to mankind's most base instinct, namely hatred. He hates religion. He even hates God, which is difficult when he doesn't exist. And most importantly, he hates hope. ... Hitchens is a scientific reductionist, reducing humans to naught but vapid animals, semi-literate primates, half-thinking apes. His book lacks joy, it lacks humour. It is a profoundly depressing tome about the decrepit nature of human existence. The book that I've launched ... is a direct result of this shattered vision: human beings are bereft of any real cosmic purpose. All they can do in life is revert to hunter-gatherers, gathering money through the day so they can hunt women at night. In so doing they fulfil their genetic role of being naught but sperm-donors.

Very funny.... God the pen-wielding clerk, sitting in an imaginary office signing applications for sexual gratification. Hitchen's brings out the true values of every priest.

I like his sex-celebrity technique, and I think it's deliberate.

[Kevin Solway]

I think Hitchens tries to follow Oscar Wilde's dictum of being very serious about the trivial, and frivolous about the serious.

For example, listening intently to that Rabbi for more than an hour, as though the rabbi was actually saying something. And also Hitchens's description of Mother Theresa as a "Sacred Cow".

[Jason]

This guy is impressive:

Ok, this guy is impressive, 18 year old Norwegian force of nature Sveinung "dendrophilian":

Consciousness
Da Mechanical Universe
Homosexuality is right cause god says its wrong!
Whoresluthooker

[brokenhead]

This guy is impressive:

Ok, this guy is impressive, 18 year old Norwegian force of nature Sveinung "dendrophilian":

Consciousness
Da Mechanical Universe
Homosexuality is right cause god says its wrong!
Whoresluthooker

Impressive?

I watched the above, and a few others, and that is not my first thought.

He is mildly entertaining. But can one expect more from any 18-year-old Norwegian who doesn't have big hooters?

[Alex Jacob]

Mostly, I thought Hitchens decimated Boteach, that Boteach did not in any sense defend a religious orientation, and all he really did was to engage in pretty obvious ad hominem. I understand, or feel I do, Hitchen's position and by and large I agree with it, with notable caveats. In a sense I see Hitchens as bringing forward the core of a new set of requirements for religion, so I don't see him as dis-serving religion. Most people's religious ideas, unfortunately, are sort of a graveyard of archaic terms and meanings. Maybe 90 percent are operating from old, unconscious structures that need revision. I personally would make a defense for the 'existence of God', but in no way similar to the Rabbi. The standard religious views are expressed through medieval terms and attitudes, but the whole orientation of science is very modern. In fact, it is like two radically different epistemes that are essentially conflicted.

[Kelly Jones]

I personally would make a defense for the 'existence of God', but in no way similar to the Rabbi. The standard religious views are expressed through medieval terms and attitudes, but the whole orientation of science is very modern. In fact, it is like two radically different epistemes that are essentially conflicted.

You wouldn't refute either the modern scientist's theistic notion of a Fine-tuner of all Universes or the deistic notion of a First Cause of Everything?

[Kevin Solway]

Here's a sobering documentary about the crisis period we are now entering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2vflGvgC68

There are seven parts to it.

We are heading the same way as the Aztecs — the only difference is that we have nowhere to go when we have consumed all our resources.

[Alex Jacob]

Kelly asks:

"You wouldn't refute either the modern scientist's theistic notion of a Fine-tuner of all Universes or the deistic notion of a First Cause of Everything?"

Probably the idea of a 'first cause' is an integral and unavoidable component of thought, as in thinking system.

What is called 'modern science's notion of a fine-tuner', as you seem to imply, is an echo, perhaps, of a deep-seated sense of a creator. Since no matter how I might try to avoid the idea myself---independently of my own self---it always finds a way to assert itself in my consciousness. In that, I am hopelessly deist! and lost!

The only way to get it out of me is a lobotomy.

Theism, as Hitchens speaks of it, is also a spirit that haunts me, and try as I might, a personal God to whom I matter keeps resurfacing. Naturally, I suppose I have novel ways to describe the motions of this spirit, and as 'science' hones in on it ('Him') like a robotic terminator, the Spirit just morphs, takes another shape, represents itself in other terms, goes underground, pops back up where you'd least expect it. At last encounter it was a 'voice' that seemed to come from the stars themselves! a resonant voice that was sung through the whole creation.

I'd check myself in to the nearest mental institution and willingly drink their medicines but the place is full-up! 'We're no longer admitting patients' says the sign on the door...

Here's the soundtrack that comes with me...

[Jason]

Impressive?

I watched the above, and a few others, and that is not my first thought.

He is mildly entertaining. But can one expect more from any 18-year-old Norwegian who doesn't have big hooters?

First you believe in god, now you fail to see how impressive dendrophilian is. You're consistent, I'll give you that.

[Jason]

Here's a sobering documentary about the crisis period we are now entering:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2vflGvgC68

There are seven parts to it.

We are heading the same way as the Aztecs — the only difference is that we have nowhere to go when we have consumed all our resources.

Kevin you seem to be creating a new Worldly Matters subforum.

[Jason]

Since no matter how I might try to avoid the idea myself---independently of my own self---it always finds a way to assert itself in my consciousness. In that, I am hopelessly deist! and lost!

Was your family religious?

[Kelly Jones]

I think a new subforum should be created, called Wise Science. It would be about living efficiently and intelligently.

Instead of renaming the Genius Forum to the Reasoning Forum, as has been considered, this subforum would be a push in the right direction, away from the disembodied, other-worldly atmosphere that attracts the mentally ill.

This subforum could play the following important roles:
- to stimulate us into seeing the Infinite in all things,
- to drag our main target audience of crisp, clinical, scientific rationalists out of their narrow-minded bogged-down views,
- to channel the huge amount of human interest in new technologies (most of which is entertainment),
- to promote inventive, imaginative, wise solutions to the worst problems currently facing our suicidally greedy rat-race,
- to teach good science, which is wisdom.

KJ

[Alex Jacob]

No Jason, in fact they weren't.

I had the strange fortune, around the age of 14, to come in contact with people who used peyote religiously. I had experiences at that tender age which, so to speak, opened my eyes to a far-reaching view of life on the planet. It may have been jump-started by ritual use of a psychedelic plant (this view, this understanding), but other strange events along the way seemed to conspire to form a world-view that...I just can't shake.

The mental world---the world of heady mentation---was also a part of my upbringing, but it came later, and was sort of overlaid on the already exposed metaphysical structure.

Y'all (many here, not all of course) seem to feel that organized mentation, a sort of rigid platform of seeing the world, which is called 'wisdom', but sometimes seems to mimic snotty teenagerism with a stick up the ass, is a sort of road to salvation, a way to exist in a rarefied atmosphere above the general and tragic fray of humanity, and teeming, chaotic life. The people who seem most to internalize (externalize?) such a view seem to me to turn into Robots of the Infinite, but they seem anything but free, anything but sublime, they seem ruled by a sort of intellectual rigidity that they dress-up as 'sagacity'.

Nome sane?

I have this distorted, irredeemably derelict idea that wisdom is something that comes from a far lower position, like among thoughtful people who live closer to the Earth. Maybe there is elevated mentation attached to it and maybe there is not. Maybe they can explain things, or maybe things get explained without words, somehow. If they handle knowledge but there is no sluice-box and torrent of high-falutin words, you might ask how then can there be wisdom or knowledge? How is knowledge conveyed in that case?

If they start a sub-forum called Wise Science, will I still be able to channel Atlantis? Will they allow girls in that treefort? Or, will the girls take it over and push the guys out, like form 50 feet, and make it a sort of lesbo-intellectual salon?

;-)

[Kelly Jones]

I have this distorted, irredeemably derelict idea that wisdom is something that comes from a far lower position, like among thoughtful people who live closer to the Earth.

And yet a moment ago you were talking about "a personal God to whom I matter", that spoke personally to you with "a 'voice' that seemed to come from the stars themselves! a resonant voice that was sung through the whole creation."

It is not wisdom, not in my view, to place the creator of all things as something separate to yourself, or to the Earth, or to stars, or whatever you like. If you cannot see the same creativity at work in everything, then your idea is indeed distorted.

[Alex Jacob]

"It is not wisdom, not in my view, to place the creator of all things as something separate to yourself, or to the Earth, or to stars, or whatever you like. If you cannot see the same creativity at work in everything, then your idea is indeed distorted."

Just don't throw me out the window of wisdom!

I'll climb down by myself!

[Kelly Jones]

Here's a specific question for you to answer. A yes or no is sufficient.

Is it true to say that causation is itself caused?