Saturday, June 12, 2010

Christopher Hitchens vs. John Haldane: "We Don't Do God"?


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May 12, 2010 at Oxford University
Christopher Hitchens debates John Haldane on 'We Don't Do God'? Secularism and Faith in the Public Square.
(via Daily Hitchens)

7 comments:

  1. I challenge everyone not to fall asleep while listening to John Haldane.

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  2. He's actually a lot better than the fools Hitchens usually debates. His style is much more academic than most of the relgious supporters in these debates. Perhaps not as exciting, but far more interesting. He actually offers quite a bit of scholarly thinking unlike D'Souza, Craig, Wolpe, et al.

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  3. <span>

    This Haldane guy should have been sporting a hat and cane to go with that fancy tap dance routine.
    </span>

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  4. Interesting is not the word I would use. He's obtuse and banal.

    His main argument was: "You can't rationalize the desire to be good to other people without using god language. Therefore god talk is better than secularism for society's common framework for discussing morality."

    He may obscure and disguise the simplicity of his argument with fancy rhetoric, but it remains a stupid, old, and tiresome argument. He makes the argument as if it's an argument for believing in god, at least I think that's how many people will take it. If he didn't mean for his argument to be taken as a reason to believe in god, then he's using it as a reason that we should pretend to believe in god. In that case, he asking that we throw out honestly and intellectual integrity as well.

    Fuck that. Intellectuals like this doesn't bring any clarity to the table. All they do is muddy people's thinking. I prefer my religious opponents to display undisguised stupidity rather than hide it under a shifty tangle of rhetoric. It's so much less work to understand (and therefore refute) them.

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  5. <span>Interesting is not the word I would use. He's obtuse and banal.  
     
    His main argument was: "You can't rationalize the desire to be good to other people without using god language. Therefore god talk is better than secularism for society's common framework for discussing morality."  
     
    He may obscure and disguise the simplicity of his argument with fancy rhetoric, but it remains a stupid, old, and tiresome argument. He makes it sound like a reason for believing in god, at least I think that's how many people will take it. If he didn't mean for his argument to be taken as a reason to believe in god, then he's using it as a reason that we should pretend to believe in god. In that case, he asking that we throw out honestly and intellectual integrity as well.  
     
    Fuck that. Intellectuals like this don't bring any clarity to the table. All they do is muddy people's thinking. I prefer my religious opponents to display undisguised stupidity rather than hide it under a shifty tangle of rhetoric. It's so much less work to understand (and therefore refute) them.</span>

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  6. Hitchens sites real charts and graphs in support of his arguments whilst Haldane proposes fictional "imaginary" charts. How pathetic.

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  7. The above comments sound a lot like Hitchens himself. Rather than truly clashing with an opponent, just act like he's boring or pompous. That's a crowd-pleasing way to wriggle out of losing a rigorous debate.

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