A man of faith telling anyone not to speak for larger groups breaks my irony meter. There is no Atheist that knows where the law of gravity came from, so Hitchens can speak for many Atheists in this case. (For now, anyways.)
Lagosays
I sorta feel Bad for Al, as he does not grasp what Hitchens is even saying. Al is lost on the most basic of concepts, as he is stuck unable to move the Necker Cube of his own reality from its unidirectional orientation.
He does not grasp that his own ideas on morality are relative, and not in-line with the Bible, and showing him this does not make him question the base premise of his stance, which is shattered by this contradiction. He simple glares confused.
He also does not grasp the idea of a design needing a designer, requiring that the designer needs one as well, and why not knowing should be a default, and not making up illogical mythical explanations.
Peter Lundsays
And so was the interviewer in part #5.
David Marjanovićsays
Ah, so it’s ay-theist? I thought it was a-theist, as in “an apple”. The (lack of a) connection between spelling and pronunciation in English never ceases to amaze.
David Marjanovićsays
Ah, so it’s ay-theist? I thought it was a-theist, as in “an apple”. The (lack of a) connection between spelling and pronunciation in English never ceases to amaze.
brentsays
Not my take on it at all. I felt like Hitchens was uncharacteristically evasive and gave an extremely poor response on the question of moral relativity. This was the key part of the debate in my opinion and Hitchens really faltered. I was surprised. Sharpton certainly wasn’t especially sharp but when he noted, repeatedly, that Hitch was simply avoiding the question with a bunch of pithy interpretation of scripture, he was correct.
The question, how do we prosecute criminals if there are no moral absolutes, is a pretty dumb one really. It displays a poor understanding of the history of the law and of the social constructions that create laws. Imperatives that would clearly exist even without believe in the invisible sky daddy. Part of answering that question in a reasonable way is pointing that out. Hitchens has to be able to answer that question more effectively to be at all persuasive in this debate.
The only complaint that Sharpton had about Hitchens that is arguably accurate is that atheists frequently attack religion rather than demonstrating how God is not great. There is a distinction and Hitchens/Dawkins have coined the term anti-theist in an attempt to address the issue. But even then the arguments from their side still tend to be mostly anti-believer rather than anti-god. Sharpton did hone in on the distinction, and I enjoyed Hitchens comment that he had lived to see the day when Sharpton denigrated rhetoric.
I have no problem with the concept of some sort of intelligence underlying creation. But the strongest statement that I can make about it is that the universe appears to be self-organizing. Call that self-organizing ability God if you want. But any assertion beyond that requires evidence, and that’s where -religion- goes awry.
travcsays
Hitchens needs to practice his American “news” TV form. He seemed evasive, despite actually answering the questions, because he was just too verbose and allowed Sharpton to pin the “you didn’t answer” on him (even when he did). Short, to the point answer without using terms of art (such as “I am not a relativist”) which the host / other guests / audience can just pretend to not understand. Then you can go into your explanation, which will probably be interrupted.
British debate / discussion tends to wait until someone has made their point before interrupting them… here in the US the first tidbit which can possibly be contested triggers an interruption.
Saddogatheistsays
where do we get our sense of morality from?
“what work best for survival”
we get it by seeing what works best for continued survival.
we try to live and act so that we can continue living and acting so that we can continue….. The basis for any moral system must be continuing individual/ group/ species survival.
We must work together to survive, those who violate that moral “basis” are first informed of their crime and then subjected to correction if possible or ejected by society.
“Go home(obey), get out, or die!” it is the most humane choice. I still like revenge/punishment because I know people can be motivated by the promise of punishment and reward(just look at religion), but I think criminals will always evaluate risk v. reward.
I still like the Death penalty for “Murder” in cases of greed and jealousy.
TheJerrylandersays
Just gone through all the five parts of the Hardball session, and again I was left with the feeling, as I am every time I see Hitchens, is that I’d have rather seen Dawkins. This might just be due to the fact that whenever I see Hitchens I get the impression that I see Lewis Black ;)
It is just a matter of appearance, I believe, though.
bernardasays
Hitchens did answer the questions as far as god groupie Sharpton would allow. Sharpton seems to think in soundbites and can’t listen or understand an argument that takes two sentences or more.
Sharpton can’t explain why he believes in the invisible man in the sky. He just says it is his faith. One thing that is interesting is that Sharpton doesn’t try to defend xian dogma. He pretends to just want to talk of god. But where does he get his money from?
I have the impression that Sharpton doesn’t even believe his god rhetoric and that he is into the preaching thing just for the money thing, like an Elmer Gantry.
I really get sick of these kind of short debates from television because interruption is so much the rule. This is the second event in which I have seen Sharpton with Hitchens, and I wonder why he continues to do this. He has nothing but a demand for an explanation for gravity and morality. His default position is that God created them and won’t allow anyone more than a moment to come up with an explanation.
And Hillary was all ready off of my shortlist for president.
Sailorsays
Hitchens does fairly well till he get tripped up by his own politcs (later parts of the interview). It seems curious that an atheist, who one would think would make jugements on evidence, could call Iraq so badly. Before the invasion it was clear 911 had nothing to do with Iraq, The weapons of mass destruction was a question, but as the weapons inpectors continued their work it seemed less and less likely they had anything that could remotely have threatend the USA, and we would have known even about that had Bush not withdrawn the inspectors to go to war. Then it did not take much history to see that without a very detailed and well-organized plan after the invasion the whole mess would collapse into factional fighting. So going to war seems to have been like an act of faith against the evidence at least as large as that of beleiving in a god. To make it worse he now wants to pardon Scooter Libby.
I really truly enjoy listening to Hitchens, the problem is that he just doesn’t play too well on American TV. His thoughts and arguments are too thought out and complete – TV in the US requires short, simple answers (and so do well known ‘reverends’ apparently). One cannot answer a question by presenting a complete argument – and this is where Hitchens tends to fall down, a provocative book and statements that require complete and clear defense – this doesn’t play well on US television as you can see – if the answer isn’t apparent in less than 30 seconds there are interruptions and calls of evasion.
Sharpton’s sound byte answers of ‘it’s just faith’ play so much better no explanation required. Of course, this is one of the reasons this faith thing made it so far in the first place. The believers can always drop back to the ‘God did it’ argument, where the rest of us must at times admit that we do not know the answer. The believer smugly think having an unreasonable answer is somehow better than not yet having an answer at all.
Erasmus, FCDsays
Fat Al must be sitting around watching Hitchens tapes prepping for this. Didn’t do him much good (commenter on youtube said ‘for all that he brought to the debate, sharpton could have been licking termites off a stick’ roflmao). Still he has picked up on the evasion technique that slyly changes the subject that hitchens uses occasionally, and i think that rattled hitch. he kept using the tactic when pressed and his hands were visibly active as if he were nervous (or needing a drink, har har har).
top quotes:
i’ve lived to see al sharpton denigrate rhetorical maneuvering.
anyone with morals would welcome excommunication from the roman catholic church.
[sharpton] hitch believes in things he can’t see too… WMD? (or something to that effect)
Anti Nazisays
Hitchens is the epitomy, or is it episiotomy, of the fundie atheist.
He just LOVES the Iraq war!
Perhaps he should get his lard ass over there!
CalGeorgesays
I can’t respect Al Sharpton. In the 2002 Newark N.J. mayor’s race, he supported the slimeballl candidate Sharpe James over the reformer Cory Booker.
Hitchens has Iraq right on the broader scope – we simply cannot afford to let the second-largest untapped oil reserve on the planet fall into the hands of despots and jihadists. The war was -never- about WMDs. Or democracy. Everything we do in the Middle East is about oil and only oil. The charade at the UN was the fig leaf to allow us to slip past treaties that would otherwise bind us from pursuing our self-interests.
And I’m okay with all that, while despising this administration at the same time. I like our standard of living, which depends on a fluid world oil market. The Democrats are okay with it too, else we would hear a lot more about that $500 million embassey and those five -permanent- huge military installations we are building there. So get real.
xyzsays
TW, last time i checked Saudia Arabia’s rulers (who have the
largest reserves) were despots too. So that can’t be it.
TWsays
xyz –
Yes, but they are OUR despots. There’s a difference!
Courtney Stokersays
Brent: I think you may be wrong. Hitchens’s first response to the relativism question was “I am not a relativist.” He answered half the question there, then proceeded to show that scripture is unable to even *give* us absolute truth. I thought this was particularly effective, actually, or would have been if Al Sharpton was at all quick on the uptake. Before he was interrupted, he said that he thought our innate morality was enough to govern us. When Sharpton then claimed he was evading the question, he was wrong. The question had been answered.
And again, when Hitchens claimed that he (and “the atheist”) didn’t know from where the natural laws came, Sharpton repeatedly claimed he wasn’t answering the question.
To me, Sharpton came off as being really dishonest or really stupid with all his claims of Hitchens not being direct.
It seems curious that an atheist, who one would think would make jugements on evidence, could call Iraq so badly.
Why?
Atheists are human beings. As such they are no less prone to irrationality than believers. It is just that their irrationality doesn’t involve God or gods. Politics can certainly be a substitution for religion as a source of irrationality for an atheist.
colluvialsays
Regarding Sharpton’s view that there is a religious basis for the punishment of criminals: this is an incorrect view that leads to a lot of useless mental activity. The question is not who deserves punishment. It isn’t productive to imagine that our courts need to mete out just rewards, just like an all-knowing god on judgment day. What we actually do is try to prevent selfish, destructive behavior by setting up negative reinforcements. If that doesn’t work, and the transgression is serious enough, the individual is removed from society to keep them from harming others. But imagining that we punish the “bad guy” as some kind of earthly form of divine retribution is an unproductive, infantile notion whose only purpose is to satisfy revenge lust.
Sailorsays
TW, so it is about oil. Does it still make sense? If you put the price of the war on price of oil and gas at the pump no one would buy it and things like solar, wind and garbage would make a lot more sense.
The US is a great country with huge technological resources, it could lead the world in renewable energy (50% of the electricity where I hang out in the US in the summer is generated from garbage dumps). If instead of putting billions of dollars trying to stabalize present oil supplies, they put those resources into technology that gets people over oil, they would not only buy a lot of security they would lead the world in new technology instead of being famous for producing giant gas-guzzling cars that are rated as trucks.
TWsays
Hitchens did answer the morality question but it got covered up with crosstalk. He made the point that people were already aware of the value of the ideals within the ten commandments -before- they arrived at Mount Sinai and (reportedly) got them delivered on stone tablets.
Sailor – Sure, it would be great to tell the Middle East to fuck off. I wonder if anyone did the math and proved out that pursuing this war was better than investing in other energy sources. The US is a partner in the $20 billion fusion project ITER now under construction in France. (France!) If the $2 TRILLION long term cost of this war had been invested in fusion energy would we be much better off? No way to know now, but I wish the debate had been about that instead of WMDs and purple fingers.
brentsays
Hitchens did answer the questions as far as god groupie Sharpton would allow. Sharpton seems to think in soundbites and can’t listen or understand an argument that takes two sentences or more.
Brent: I think you may be wrong. Hitchens’s first response to the relativism question was “I am not a relativist.” He answered half the question there, then proceeded to show that scripture is unable to even *give* us absolute truth.
Here is what I think:
Hitchens’ answer was basically that 1) he was not a relativist, 2) that the bible offers very poor guide to morality in any case and 3) that our innate morality is enough to construct our criminal law.
Perhaps you are right. Maybe this is an answer. I guess I just think its kind of a crappy one. The first starts to answer the question but I am curious since he claims to not be a relativist if he would therefore claim to be an absolutist. It seems unlikely to me that he would do so even if this is the only other logical conclusion given the philosophical pitfalls of moral absolutism.
The second part of his response is really not relevant. The fact that the bible offers contradictory moral advice does not really answer the question of whether morality comes from God. If on the other hand, the bible were consistent, could we then assume that our morality does come from God?
But its the third part oh his answer that disappoints me the most I think, because it accepts the premise that laws are fundamentally about morality and it appeals to “innate morality” which is a particularly shadowy standard. When someone asks, “where does our morality come from, if not from God?”, I find that the answer that it comes from inside us to be a pretty inadequate response. It begs the question really. Ok so its innate, but how is that defined and where does it come from? Morever, given the easily demonstrable shifting moral standards of human beings through history, it seems pretty easy to dismiss any consistent “innate” morality as a guide to anything.
So, maybe he did answer the question. I stand corrected. His answer was not a very good one in my opinion.
brentsays
Hitchens did answer the morality question but it got covered up with crosstalk. He made the point that people were already aware of the value of the ideals within the ten commandments -before- they arrived at Mount Sinai and (reportedly) got them delivered on stone tablets.
Looking at the tape again, you are correct. I remembered his point differently when I wrote my previous post at #25.
Hitchens did appear to avoid a question or two. Why did he avoid answering Sharpton’s question about where gravity came from? Why couldn’t he just have said, “I don’t know”? The point is, Sharpton doesn’t know either, but the difference is that Sharpton then makes up an answer – God – and claims he is certain it is true. It seems like such an easy answer for Hitchens to give.
Ksays
It’s gone back to weapons of mass destruction? I was blah, blah, blahing about how stupid it was to be over there looking for weapons and HA HA, no weapons existed, what a bunch of idiots we looked like UNTIL I saw, “Why We Fight.” Guess what? Our government KNEW there were weapons over there because they have the receipts. “We,” sold the weapons of mass destruction to Hussein.
Sharpton’s entire argument amounts to saying “You can’t say my explanation for X is wrong/unjustified unless you know what the explanation for X is”, which only takes a moment’s reflection to debunk. I may not know how tall the Eiffel tower is, but I know it isn’t 1,000 miles. Likewise, just because you pretend to know the origin of morals and call it “god” doesn’t make your ignorance of the question any less deep than mine. It just makes you less honest about it, to yourself as much as to the rest of us.
It is also worth noting that Sharpton’s implication that morals cannot be timeless and absolute except through god is actually bass-ackwards. For what morality is LESS relative than one that can change any moment in any direction merely at the whim of one being?
Diracsays
1. I agree with all previous posts about how Hitchens’ style doesn’t play well on an American “debate” show. If he can’t get to the point directly, his opponent will interrupt and call evasion, and the audience will agree.
Unfortunately, I think he did completely answer the morality question, but in his own style. He starts by saying “I am not a relativist,” and makes references to our “innate morality,” which is really the key to his argument. He got derailed on explaining why religious morality is neither necessary nor sufficient for a system of laws, however, and didn’t expand enough on how we got the morals he claims we have.
2. What does Iraq have to do with this book and debate? I know Sharpton wants to bring it up to undermine his credibility, and whether that’s effective or not is another matter. But it’s rather slimy to completely steer the discussion to an unrelated topic, and one Sharpton knowns Hitch will be more than happy to gab about. What a shifty little bugger.
3. Anyone else Sharpton’s gradual grammar shift? As he became more flustered he went from “asking” Hitch questions to “axing” him.
Brent: Your instincts serve you well. Don’t apologize.
Hitchens didn’t really answer the question in a coherent way. “I am not a relativist” does not mesh well with the claim that morality is innate, a product of our genes, since we know full well that there is genetic variation in the human population—thus there might well be variation within the population with respect to the moral order. The moment we allow this possibility, the idea of an absolute morality becomes problematic. Certainly not the sort of thing that is likely to be advanced in the street theatre shown in the video.
I hasten to say that the notion that morality depends upon the existence of a supernatural being is also incoherent, not to mention contradicted by evidence. I agree that morality is, to some degree, ‘hard-wired’ and a product of natural selection. Our codifications of that moral sense, however, is not only not ‘hard-wired’, it is fictive.
… arguments from their side still tend to be mostly anti-believer rather than anti-god. Sharpton did hone in on the distinction, …
Hitchens wasn’t just anti-believer, he was anti-Bible, recall his take on the ten commandments, and Sharpton backed off into a deist position and did not defend the Bible. I wonder why Hitch didn’t point that out, ask Sharpton, “are you a deist or a Christian?” If Sharpton isn’t going to defend the Bible, then where does he get his vision of what God is?
I have no problem with the concept of some sort of intelligence underlying creation. But the strongest statement that I can make about it is that the universe appears to be self-organizing. Call that self-organizing ability God if you want. But any assertion beyond that requires evidence, and that’s where -religion- goes awry.
Now I would deal with that by rejecting the “Call that self-organizing ability God if you want,” as a proper definition of God. That definition is too minimal to mean anything religious and can’t be argued with, we can only argue against the mentally anthropic projections people put on the cause of the universe, those assumptions that some entity “desired,” “planned,” “wanted,” “willed,” and “designed” this universe.
shystersays
I have to admit to a guilty pleasure: TV evangelists.
Every Sunday I flip through the channels and spend a few minutes with each of the god hucksters. I love the way that they can take any verse in the bible and turn it into a commandment that the audience give them money.
“Brothers and sisters, God is omniscient; he knows everything. He is omnipotent; all powerful and he is omnivorous; hungry for anything you can give.
“It is well known that ‘Jesus wept’ (John 11:35) is the shortest complete verse in the Bible. Do you know why Jesus wept, Brothers and Sisters? He wept because you have not sent in your $1,000 seed of faith. You have made Jesus cry; stop his tears by giving.”
Today I watched Mike Murdock (Inspiration Ministries), a god hustler with the looks of a Serbian crime boss, mention the $1,000 seed about 25 times while I was watching. The seed will harvest and make 300 millionaires and he is fairly sure more than that.
The thing I loved about his show was the periodic disclaimer: Miracles are a gift from God and Inspiration Ministries does not guarantee that all who give will receive one.
Truth in advertising and god bless lawyers.
Ubersays
Hitchens did pretty well and he did answer the questions. Sharpton was clueless with the false dicotomy at the end ‘God made gravity if not who did’? Ug.
pokesays
I thought the most telling thing was that Sharpton thinks gravity has to be either a product of God’s choosing it to be so or a product of our choosing it to be so. (He has the same belief about morality.) Basically he has no concept of objectivity. Everything must be a product of a subjective decision. This is also how very young children think.
Woodwosesays
Everytime I see one of these discussions it reminds me of the Simpsons episode “Homer at the Bat (1992)”. The dialogue between the patrons of Moe’s goes like this:
Barney: [in Moe’s Tavern] And I say, that England’s greatest Prime Minister was Lord Palmerston!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!
Barney: Lord Palmerston!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!
Barney: Okay, you asked for it, Boggs!
[punches him out]
Moe: Yeah, that’s showing him, Barn’!
[disbelieving]
Moe: Pitt the Elder…
Barney: Lord Palmerston!
[punches him out]
I get the feeling that both sides are posturing for the camera and future book sales.
ClandestineEndersays
How dare Sharpton accuse Hitchens of circumventing the question with his “whit”. If by whit he means presenting evidence and facts for why he believes what he believes (something Sharpton knows nothing about) then whit can only be used as a compliment. And the line that really triggered my indignation was Sharpton opining he had no problem with science, which really evinces the fact he knows nothing about science, due to the fact that he’s religious and somehow doesn’t see the incompatibility of the two. Sharpton refuses to debate the existence of god with scripture, so if he’s not using scrpture as his reasoning then what is he using? Certainly he’s not getting his excuses for believing in God from science.
Graculussays
Hitchens didn’t really answer the question in a coherent way. “I am not a relativist” does not mesh well with the claim that morality is innate, a product of our genes, since we know full well that there is genetic variation in the human population—thus there might well be variation within the population with respect to the moral order. The moment we allow this possibility, the idea of an absolute morality becomes problematic. Certainly not the sort of thing that is likely to be advanced in the street theatre shown in the video.
I think the problem is that “morality” gets used to describe subtley different things, and so does “innate” when you are trying to get a word in past someone like Al.
To me, morality is both innate and not genetic. Innate in our being social creatures that are genetically programmed to go along to get along, not genetic in that morality is not based on the individual at all, but on the interactions between individuals.
And could someone please stick a boot up the commenting system here, it’s been giving me old harry for days.
“The only complaint that Sharpton had about Hitchens that is arguably accurate is that atheists frequently attack religion rather than demonstrating how God is not great.”
I don’t think so. Hitchens, et al. attack the predominant concept of God, the predominant thinking. They obviously can’t attack some objective, universal idea of God because one doesn’t exist. No two cultures, let alone two people, have the exact same idea about God.
And why would you try to attack some objective God, anyways? That has no implications for our society. It’s philosophical meandering, and not really substantive. What does have implications for our society is the gods people do believe in and do worship. And those gods are indistinguishable from religion.
Tully Bascombsays
Scott:
I am not understanding your position. While an innate morality may vary among individuals, possibly due to genetic influence, we are really more interested in the morality of larger populations, and the convergent morality that results.
Absolute morality is not a practical concept, and seems a bit of a straw man here — like trying to define an absolutely accurate scientific measurement. As Scientific Avenger points out in post #29, not knowing the height of the Eiffel Tower, but knowing that it is not 1000 miles does not make one a relativist — the lack of absolute knowledge does not mean a total lack of knowledge, and a lack of absolute morality does not imply relative relative. Or am I missing your point?
Jake Bluessays
Because we agree with Hitchens, are we automatically obligated to grant him the edge in the debate?
Sharpton never heard of the social contract. Blarg.
pokesays
Something that bugs me: The correct answer to “who made the law of gravity?” is “spacetime curvature.” There isn’t really a problem of explaining laws anymore. Modern physics describes objects with properties rather than objects governed by abstract laws. For that matter, there’s not really a problem of explaining lawlike behaviour; objects have their properties as a matter of self-identity. I don’t think there’s really room in there for the immanent God who keeps things ticking.
By pointing out that these things have answers you can demonstrate the absurdity of the “Why is there something rather than nothing?” question. We know where all the things we see in the world came from: lifeforms, planets, stars, the heavy elements, etc. Someone asking the same question just a few generations ago would have literally meant “Where did the stars and the birds and the oceans and soil come from?” Now we can explain it all, across billions of years, right up to very soon after the Big Bang. It’s important to emphasise that the actual question being asked is “Where did the hot quark-gluon plasma come from?” I mean, sure, we don’t know exactly; but we do know the answer will say absolutely nothing about human affairs.
RamblinDudesays
Hitchens is often accused of approaching debates like a barroom brawler but next to Sharpton he appeared quite reasonable.
What I found interesting was that when Hitchens pointed out the moral inconsistencies of religious dogma, Sharpton jumped all over it, as though it was an entirely irrelevant subject. Irrelevant? Apparently ‘GOD’ has nothing at all to do with the Ten Commandments, Jesus’ dictums, or even the bible. His God, apparently, is above all that. I guess that’s what makes him so holy. (Sharpton or God, take your pick)
There was one moment when Hitchens seemed to get his wires crossed, when asked about his personal moral impetus for dealing with psychopaths–because he was so focused on the delineating the fallibility of the religious dogmatic approach. And, of course, Sharpton ran with it and spent the rest of the interview unjustly attacking him for being evasive. Toward the end, Sharpton comes off seeming to be willfully obtuse just so he can confuse the issues and keep Hitchens off balance. (What a slimeball).
Sharpton argues like a ten year old at the play ground. He seems to think that all his warm and fuzzy feelings about the existence of God is all the proof anyone needs to refute the unbelievers. And since he knows most people think that way too, his debating style is to try and mobilize the crowd around him by adopting that churchy preaching voice that defenders of the faith spend so much time trying to perfect and say pious things.
This wasn’t a debate, it was Hitchens talking to a wall.
386sxsays
He [Sharpton] has nothing but a demand for an explanation for gravity and morality.
Yep and he thinks that if nobody has a complete explanation for those then he somehow is one-up on the experts, and yet he knows nothing about either one. Or at least that’s what he pretends. In reality he’s probably just another demagogic fleece flocker.
I would like to respond to the points on #38 and #40, but I’m also having troubles with the system whenever I insert a hyperlink. I’ll try back later…SH
I really didn’t see Hitchens being evasive, but two things trip him up. Actually they’re kind of the same thing. He has to build up to every answer with a lengthy preamble explaining his reasoning, and he has to waste time working in every half-clever illustrative figure he’s thought of over the past couple weeks. Which is fair. He is, after all, here to sell books.
So Sharpton basically dives in yelling “you’re not answering the question!” while Hitchens is about midway through answering the question. Sharp’s counterattacks are all bluster, but the sheer volume was enough to throw Hitch off for a bit.
He needs to come up with a shorter response to the “you don’t know how X works, therefore God” thing, though. Were he asking, I’d recommend studying Dawkins’ responses to that sort of question, and then stealing them outright. Also that the phrase “argument from ignorance” gets a lot across efficiently. He could try saying it in Latin if that was more his style, I’m sure most people would work it out eventually.
msssays
Ugh, how depressing. Al Sharpton strikes me as having long ago unlearned how to listen to new ideas; he simply expects Hitchens to reproduce arguments he’s already heard in terms he already knows. Moreover, he seems to have no ability to produce the specific from the general.
Sharpton: If God didn’t create gravity, who did?
Hitchens: Atheists need positive evidence that God is present, not a lack of evidence to the contrary.
Sharpton: Why didn’t you answer my question?
Sigh.
Willo the Wispsays
The middle-east screwup is not about oil. It’s about religion. Islam, Judaism and Christianity regard each other as heresy. Islam views Christianity as a threat, and the Koran is shot through with unambigous militancy and advocacy of violence toward its enemies. It’s arguable that the Christian authorities (check out Ronald Reagan on this issue) support the Jewish state in Israel partly because the resulting war between Judaism and Islam will bring about the Armageddon they desperately crave. Hitchens is right – religion screws everything up.
Willo the Wispsays
I think morality is phenotypical. I like Hitchens’s point that we choose a moral middle-ground between only allowing non-sinners to judge, and taking an eye for an eye. The Bible doesn’t really teach us that middle ground – so where does it come from? Morality is the natural behaviour of the human animal. Only rarely do humans murder their offspring, or start fires, or commit suicide. Yes, these things really are rare – most people don’t steal, or murder.
Chris really should’ve taken his shades off in that situation.
BlueIndependentsays
Hitchens is of course generally right about this subject throughout this piece. The very last statement he gets in encapsulates everything though, and atheists really need to say that more often so people are aware of it. Don’t let the churchgoers frame you as a tiny group of people worthy of being smited because they think they know everything.
I will say I’m surprised that they didn’t throttle each other, though there was more to the segment so maybe they did later on. Last time those two were on Maher’s show together Bill had a guest between them to keep them from killing each other. That particular argument was however on the Iraq War, not on religion vs science, so maybe that was the problem…
Ichthyicsays
Why did he avoid answering Sharpton’s question about where gravity came from?
If someone asked you:
“Where does “mass” come from?”
how would YOU answer?
“I don’t know” is actually NOT an appropriate answer.
the question is nonsensical to begin with, unless the asker was interested in the etymology of the word mass itself. Do you really expect Hitch could have explained that during a “hardball” debate with al sharpton???
evasive? not hardly.
how can you be evasive of a non-question?
Ichthyicsays
BTW, when hitch uses the term “innate morality”, I think he is simplifying the observation that there appear to be types of behavior that are looked upon negatively across hundreds of different cultures with radically differing theologies (he even mentions that briefly).
again, do you really expect him, in this context, to explain in detail the entire history of cultural anthropology?
the one thing I DO agree with in the bulk of the commentary here, is that this kind of “forum” (hardball “debates” moderated Fox-News style), is certainly not conducive to thoughtful argument, and it is a puzzlement why Hitch even bothers to participate in them.
must be to increase book sales, IMO.
RamblinDudesays
Hitchens is hot tempered. He needs to get over his knee jerk pugnaciousness when going toe to toe with people like Sharpton. But I don’t think that was so much the problem here. (Well, maybe a little bit).
It would be interesting to see this interview done all over with Dawkins, instead. I suspect he would have gotten the salient points in more efficiently, but I still like the way Hitchen’s mind works.
I think a proper title for this piece would be “Al Sharpton admits the bible is a bunch of crap.” It’d be nice to google Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens and find that title.
If nothing else, these debates show xians retreating in the face of logic, and that should be brought to the fore.
cureholdersays
For David Marjanovic:
Regarding the pronunciation of “atheist,” it may be helpful to know that the initial “A” is usually pronounced as a long “A” (rhymes with “hay”) when that “A” has been added to another word to produce the opposite meaning.
Thus, while “apple” has a short “A” (following the general rules of pronunciation), “atypical,” atonal,” amoral,” and “atheist” all have the long “A.” (And, because every exception must have an exception, the word “avocation” has long been in use as a synonym of “hobby,” and thus is rarely thought of in its actual meaning of “the opposite of vocation”—and thus, through usage, has developed the short “A” typical of a word that had the “A” in its original form.)
Not saying it makes any sense at all. But that’s the general idea. :)
David Marjanovićsays
Anyone else Sharpton’s gradual grammar shift? As he became more flustered he went from “asking” Hitch questions to “axing” him.
That’s not grammar, that’s accent. (Askent?)
David Marjanovićsays
Anyone else Sharpton’s gradual grammar shift? As he became more flustered he went from “asking” Hitch questions to “axing” him.
That’s not grammar, that’s accent. (Askent?)
Tom Southernsays
Surprised no one has pointed out that the rule of law is not innate (precisely), but the result of evolutionary pressure. Most law is the result of making species survival a bit better (opening the umbrella against the inevitable historic rainstorms). The notion of innate in creationist terms is different than the notion in evolution. Innate for creationists means god-given.
Gravity– My Newton, what a silly riposte. Without gravity, we would not be able to access the web as we do. We might in some other way.
Tom
Robertsays
Sailor said:
“TW, so it is about oil. Does it still make sense? If you put the price of the war on price of oil and gas at the pump no one would buy it and things like solar, wind and garbage would make a lot more sense.
The US is a great country with huge technological resources, it could lead the world in renewable energy (50% of the electricity where I hang out in the US in the summer is generated from garbage dumps). If instead of putting billions of dollars trying to stabalize present oil supplies, they put those resources into technology that gets people over oil, they would not only buy a lot of security they would lead the world in new technology instead of being famous for producing giant gas-guzzling cars that are rated as trucks.”
Perhaps it would have been better to set up a $500 billion “X Prize” for successfully developing viable alternatives (ex. Fusion energy; genetically engineered biodiesel algae; cheap and efficient solar power; etc.) instead of spending it on wars in the Middle East.
I don’t think Hitchens stood up too well from a lay perspective. I doubt most people understood he was answering the questions (like when he said he was not a relativist) then giving a background for his statement. Sharpton either didn’t hear him, didn’t understand him, or took for granted that the audience isn’t listening that carefully, because he played him every which way with the “you didn’t answer the question” line.
Sure, almost everyone here agrees with Hitchens, knows what he’s going to say, and knows what he MEANS, but it all comes off like he’s evasive and unsure of himself, and rambles on and on about unrelated subjects.
I think a lot of news programs LIKE to have Hitchens on, because no matter HOW right he is, he often comes off as unsure, arrogant, or drunk… which makes it a heck of a lot easier for the less educated public to dismiss him.
Just for kicks, I’ll go over to 360 and put up a poll, and see who the GENERAL public thinks did the best here… then I’ll report back…
JJRsays
“The (lack of a) connection between spelling and pronunciation in English never ceases to amaze.”
It’s usually the fault of the French. Y’know, 1066 and all that.
Robsays
I just don’t understand why Sharpton and others keep asking where we get our morality, and why Hitchens and others have such difficulty explaining such a simple concept.
To me, being moral is either 1) behaving in a way consistant with how others would prefer I behave, or 2) behaving in a way consistant with how I would prefer others behave. Most of the time they are about the same (i.e. I don’t want others to steal from me, and others don’t want me to steal from them….so being more moral would be to not steal from people). Why would anyone think you need a freakin magical deity to explain such a simple concept?
Oh, and with regard to prosecuting criminals: ummm….same reason we send kids to the corner if they misbehave? So they’re less likely to misbehave…? Geez….
phatsays
I actually think that Sharpton acquitted himself quite well. I don’t agree with him at all. But Sharpton is a smart guy and came off as very smart. I think the comments mentioned before about sound bite culture are quite accurate.
Hitchens is not the best spokesman for this point of view in America. He’s right, he’s well-spoken. You and I may want to hear what he has to say. But most Americans want to hear the Crossfire garbage that passes for argument.
Granted, this may not ever bode well for any serious discourse in the US. But Hitchens will not likely be able to explain to people in the US his perspective effectively.
This is a difficult argument to make, even with very smart people. I’d like to believe that Hitchens or Harris can do it. But they haven’t yet.
I also think that going after Hitchens about the WMD thing and the war is effective. Hitchens really screwed the pooch on that one. I think Harris is in the same boat.
I almost wrote a lot more but it’s late and the wine is keeping me from writing anything but nonesense.
I don’t think Hitchens did a very good job here. I don’t think it was likely that any good conversation would have come out of the format, with the shouting and stuff.
He was right and made good arguments (aside from the Iraq garbage) but it’s not helping. It’s not bad. He’s not wrong.
I’m not sure what it takes to help. I think PZ might be better at this sort of thing, as he lives in small town America and can talk their talk, I would assume.
I’m beginning to realize that somebody from “the heartland” needs to write a book about this stuff.
As much as I love the British prose, I know it’s not going over well with my neighbors in Lincoln, NE.
phat
phatsays
Oh, I’ll add this. I’m not a “moderate” atheist, or whatever. I think we need to keep hammering this point of view out of serious need, in that if we keep giving the religious point of view its special place in the discourse we won’t much last on this planet. Believe me, I’ve experienced the damage that right-wing and left-wing religion can inspire.
I think a proper title for this piece would be “Al Sharpton admits the bible is a bunch of crap.” It’d be nice to google Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens and find that title.
Thanks — you’ve just given me a title for my blog post on the debate.
J Daleysays
Sailor said: If instead of putting billions of dollars trying to stabalize present oil supplies, they put those resources into technology that gets people over oil, they would not only buy a lot of security they would lead the world in new technology instead of being famous for producing giant gas-guzzling cars that are rated as trucks.
As I understand it, the point of the war was not securing oil reserves for our own use, but rather defending the petrodollar standard, without which our debtor economy would tank. Saddam was making overtures to the UN to put his oil on a petroeuro standard, and we couldn’t have that. This is also apparently a big part of the reason we currently have beef with Iran – they are establishing an oil “bourse” (or kind of options market) that is decoupled from the dollar.
See Petrodollar Warfare by William Clark for more.
I think a proper title for this piece would be “Al Sharpton admits the bible is a bunch of crap.” It’d be nice to google Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens and find that title.
Now you may soon be able to search for for the name Al Sharpton and get links with the title: “Al Sharpton admits the bible is a bunch of crap.” You just have to link my blog post — found by clicking on the name “Sharpton” often enough to push it to the top of a Google search.”
Leonsays
shyster said:
“It is well known that ‘Jesus wept’ (John 11:35) is the shortest complete verse in the Bible. Do you know why Jesus wept, Brothers and Sisters? He wept because you have not sent in your $1,000 seed of faith. You have made Jesus cry; stop his tears by giving.”
Does that tie in somewhere with not spilling your seed on the ground?
When the hell are African-Americans going to get mad about the fact that their ancestors were forcibly converted to Christianity?
They never mention that in slavery reparations.
ALsays
When the hell are African-Americans going to get mad about the fact that their ancestors were forcibly converted to Christianity?
They never mention that in slavery reparations.
Didn’t you hear Dr. Sharpton, Ph.D.? They have no choice but to accept Christianity. Because atheists can’t tell us where gravity comes from.
A Hermitsays
Hitchens can be pretty good when he’s sober…
But surely we can find a better spokesman.
Caledoniansays
You have Hitchens, and you have Dawkins.
If you don’t like either, you’d best try it yourself, because there aren’t really any other options.
A Hermitsays
“there aren’t really any other options.”
Sure there are; Robert Buckman or Paul Kurtz just off the top of my head.
Of course they aren’t firebreathers like Hitchens so you’ll never see them on the TV I suppose…
Kseniyasays
Sam Harris?
qedprosays
I find the whole discussion of moral absolutes funny. Theists do not have moral absolutes yet they think they do. for example, if a child was being raped and a person could stop it without any harm to themselves, we would think the person completely immoral if they did not stop the rape. In the case of moral “absoluteness”, then this immorality would apply to everyone and everything. if you do not stop a rape that you could have, you are immoral. Yet theists let their gods off the hook every time. apparently gods are not immoral even though they allow our children to be raped by psychopaths.
the whole concept of absolute morality shouldn’t even be discussed with theists.
I know it’s a cheap cop-out that comes way out of left field*, but just once I’d like to see Hitchens, Dawkins, or any other athiest answer “If God didn’t create gravity, then who did?” with “Oh, I don’t know, how about Baayami or Unkulunkulu? Didja ever consider that, or are the Zulus and Aborigines too primitive to have come up with the ‘right’ god, you damned bigot?!”
I’d love to see Sharpton explain how his is the correct belief.
*Why oh why do we atheists hold ourselves to a higher standard of discourse?
Dylan Stafnesays
I only watched the first video, but Hitchens came across as a giant asshole. Is he right about God? Sure. But Sharpton seemed tor reasonably counter Hitchens, even though the “where’d gravity come from” question is evasive. I don’t know, I guess I just dislike both of them more now.
Chrissays
Hitchens missed a big point on the absolute vs. relative morality issue: We don’t prosecute criminals based on absolute truth. We prosecute them based on *consensus* truth. Just as a jury decides the facts of each individual case, society collectively decides which actions to define as criminal and punishable in the first place.
If there is anyone reading this who believes in absolute morality: in part of the 20th century, the US criminalized the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol. Now it doesn’t. Which position was absolutely right and which one was absolutely wrong, and how do you know? Now apply the same reasoning to tobacco, marijuana, caffeine and cocaine. Which ones is it absolutely right to outlaw, and which ones is it absolutely wrong to outlaw? None? All? Precisely the ones that actually are outlawed in the present-day US?
My position is, we outlawed the ones we felt like outlawing. It isn’t *intrinsically* any more wrong to smoke marijuana than to smoke tobacco, but the current consensus of society is to criminalize it, so if you do smoke marijuana, you risk being imprisoned for it. Not because it’s absolutely wrong, but because society defines it as criminal.
Timothysays
I really wish Hitchens would just admit that he’s dead wrong on Iraq. It makes him look like a fool and allows people to get into silly arguments with him like Sharpton does. It really is a liability.
Has anyone figured out how Hitchens can be so good on some topics and so completely wrong on others? It’s the drinking, isn’t it?
A man of faith telling anyone not to speak for larger groups breaks my irony meter. There is no Atheist that knows where the law of gravity came from, so Hitchens can speak for many Atheists in this case. (For now, anyways.)
I sorta feel Bad for Al, as he does not grasp what Hitchens is even saying. Al is lost on the most basic of concepts, as he is stuck unable to move the Necker Cube of his own reality from its unidirectional orientation.
He does not grasp that his own ideas on morality are relative, and not in-line with the Bible, and showing him this does not make him question the base premise of his stance, which is shattered by this contradiction. He simple glares confused.
He also does not grasp the idea of a design needing a designer, requiring that the designer needs one as well, and why not knowing should be a default, and not making up illogical mythical explanations.
And so was the interviewer in part #5.
Ah, so it’s ay-theist? I thought it was a-theist, as in “an apple”. The (lack of a) connection between spelling and pronunciation in English never ceases to amaze.
Ah, so it’s ay-theist? I thought it was a-theist, as in “an apple”. The (lack of a) connection between spelling and pronunciation in English never ceases to amaze.
Not my take on it at all. I felt like Hitchens was uncharacteristically evasive and gave an extremely poor response on the question of moral relativity. This was the key part of the debate in my opinion and Hitchens really faltered. I was surprised. Sharpton certainly wasn’t especially sharp but when he noted, repeatedly, that Hitch was simply avoiding the question with a bunch of pithy interpretation of scripture, he was correct.
The question, how do we prosecute criminals if there are no moral absolutes, is a pretty dumb one really. It displays a poor understanding of the history of the law and of the social constructions that create laws. Imperatives that would clearly exist even without believe in the invisible sky daddy. Part of answering that question in a reasonable way is pointing that out. Hitchens has to be able to answer that question more effectively to be at all persuasive in this debate.
The only complaint that Sharpton had about Hitchens that is arguably accurate is that atheists frequently attack religion rather than demonstrating how God is not great. There is a distinction and Hitchens/Dawkins have coined the term anti-theist in an attempt to address the issue. But even then the arguments from their side still tend to be mostly anti-believer rather than anti-god. Sharpton did hone in on the distinction, and I enjoyed Hitchens comment that he had lived to see the day when Sharpton denigrated rhetoric.
I have no problem with the concept of some sort of intelligence underlying creation. But the strongest statement that I can make about it is that the universe appears to be self-organizing. Call that self-organizing ability God if you want. But any assertion beyond that requires evidence, and that’s where -religion- goes awry.
Hitchens needs to practice his American “news” TV form. He seemed evasive, despite actually answering the questions, because he was just too verbose and allowed Sharpton to pin the “you didn’t answer” on him (even when he did). Short, to the point answer without using terms of art (such as “I am not a relativist”) which the host / other guests / audience can just pretend to not understand. Then you can go into your explanation, which will probably be interrupted.
British debate / discussion tends to wait until someone has made their point before interrupting them… here in the US the first tidbit which can possibly be contested triggers an interruption.
where do we get our sense of morality from?
“what work best for survival”
we get it by seeing what works best for continued survival.
we try to live and act so that we can continue living and acting so that we can continue….. The basis for any moral system must be continuing individual/ group/ species survival.
We must work together to survive, those who violate that moral “basis” are first informed of their crime and then subjected to correction if possible or ejected by society.
“Go home(obey), get out, or die!” it is the most humane choice. I still like revenge/punishment because I know people can be motivated by the promise of punishment and reward(just look at religion), but I think criminals will always evaluate risk v. reward.
I still like the Death penalty for “Murder” in cases of greed and jealousy.
Just gone through all the five parts of the Hardball session, and again I was left with the feeling, as I am every time I see Hitchens, is that I’d have rather seen Dawkins. This might just be due to the fact that whenever I see Hitchens I get the impression that I see Lewis Black ;)
It is just a matter of appearance, I believe, though.
Hitchens did answer the questions as far as god groupie Sharpton would allow. Sharpton seems to think in soundbites and can’t listen or understand an argument that takes two sentences or more.
Sharpton can’t explain why he believes in the invisible man in the sky. He just says it is his faith. One thing that is interesting is that Sharpton doesn’t try to defend xian dogma. He pretends to just want to talk of god. But where does he get his money from?
I have the impression that Sharpton doesn’t even believe his god rhetoric and that he is into the preaching thing just for the money thing, like an Elmer Gantry.
I really get sick of these kind of short debates from television because interruption is so much the rule. This is the second event in which I have seen Sharpton with Hitchens, and I wonder why he continues to do this. He has nothing but a demand for an explanation for gravity and morality. His default position is that God created them and won’t allow anyone more than a moment to come up with an explanation.
And Hillary was all ready off of my shortlist for president.
Hitchens does fairly well till he get tripped up by his own politcs (later parts of the interview). It seems curious that an atheist, who one would think would make jugements on evidence, could call Iraq so badly. Before the invasion it was clear 911 had nothing to do with Iraq, The weapons of mass destruction was a question, but as the weapons inpectors continued their work it seemed less and less likely they had anything that could remotely have threatend the USA, and we would have known even about that had Bush not withdrawn the inspectors to go to war. Then it did not take much history to see that without a very detailed and well-organized plan after the invasion the whole mess would collapse into factional fighting. So going to war seems to have been like an act of faith against the evidence at least as large as that of beleiving in a god. To make it worse he now wants to pardon Scooter Libby.
I really truly enjoy listening to Hitchens, the problem is that he just doesn’t play too well on American TV. His thoughts and arguments are too thought out and complete – TV in the US requires short, simple answers (and so do well known ‘reverends’ apparently). One cannot answer a question by presenting a complete argument – and this is where Hitchens tends to fall down, a provocative book and statements that require complete and clear defense – this doesn’t play well on US television as you can see – if the answer isn’t apparent in less than 30 seconds there are interruptions and calls of evasion.
Sharpton’s sound byte answers of ‘it’s just faith’ play so much better no explanation required. Of course, this is one of the reasons this faith thing made it so far in the first place. The believers can always drop back to the ‘God did it’ argument, where the rest of us must at times admit that we do not know the answer. The believer smugly think having an unreasonable answer is somehow better than not yet having an answer at all.
Fat Al must be sitting around watching Hitchens tapes prepping for this. Didn’t do him much good (commenter on youtube said ‘for all that he brought to the debate, sharpton could have been licking termites off a stick’ roflmao). Still he has picked up on the evasion technique that slyly changes the subject that hitchens uses occasionally, and i think that rattled hitch. he kept using the tactic when pressed and his hands were visibly active as if he were nervous (or needing a drink, har har har).
top quotes:
i’ve lived to see al sharpton denigrate rhetorical maneuvering.
anyone with morals would welcome excommunication from the roman catholic church.
[sharpton] hitch believes in things he can’t see too… WMD? (or something to that effect)
Hitchens is the epitomy, or is it episiotomy, of the fundie atheist.
He just LOVES the Iraq war!
Perhaps he should get his lard ass over there!
I can’t respect Al Sharpton. In the 2002 Newark N.J. mayor’s race, he supported the slimeballl candidate Sharpe James over the reformer Cory Booker.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4729508
Truly sleazy.
Hitchens has Iraq right on the broader scope – we simply cannot afford to let the second-largest untapped oil reserve on the planet fall into the hands of despots and jihadists. The war was -never- about WMDs. Or democracy. Everything we do in the Middle East is about oil and only oil. The charade at the UN was the fig leaf to allow us to slip past treaties that would otherwise bind us from pursuing our self-interests.
And I’m okay with all that, while despising this administration at the same time. I like our standard of living, which depends on a fluid world oil market. The Democrats are okay with it too, else we would hear a lot more about that $500 million embassey and those five -permanent- huge military installations we are building there. So get real.
TW, last time i checked Saudia Arabia’s rulers (who have the
largest reserves) were despots too. So that can’t be it.
xyz –
Yes, but they are OUR despots. There’s a difference!
Brent: I think you may be wrong. Hitchens’s first response to the relativism question was “I am not a relativist.” He answered half the question there, then proceeded to show that scripture is unable to even *give* us absolute truth. I thought this was particularly effective, actually, or would have been if Al Sharpton was at all quick on the uptake. Before he was interrupted, he said that he thought our innate morality was enough to govern us. When Sharpton then claimed he was evading the question, he was wrong. The question had been answered.
And again, when Hitchens claimed that he (and “the atheist”) didn’t know from where the natural laws came, Sharpton repeatedly claimed he wasn’t answering the question.
To me, Sharpton came off as being really dishonest or really stupid with all his claims of Hitchens not being direct.
Why?
Atheists are human beings. As such they are no less prone to irrationality than believers. It is just that their irrationality doesn’t involve God or gods. Politics can certainly be a substitution for religion as a source of irrationality for an atheist.
Regarding Sharpton’s view that there is a religious basis for the punishment of criminals: this is an incorrect view that leads to a lot of useless mental activity. The question is not who deserves punishment. It isn’t productive to imagine that our courts need to mete out just rewards, just like an all-knowing god on judgment day. What we actually do is try to prevent selfish, destructive behavior by setting up negative reinforcements. If that doesn’t work, and the transgression is serious enough, the individual is removed from society to keep them from harming others. But imagining that we punish the “bad guy” as some kind of earthly form of divine retribution is an unproductive, infantile notion whose only purpose is to satisfy revenge lust.
TW, so it is about oil. Does it still make sense? If you put the price of the war on price of oil and gas at the pump no one would buy it and things like solar, wind and garbage would make a lot more sense.
The US is a great country with huge technological resources, it could lead the world in renewable energy (50% of the electricity where I hang out in the US in the summer is generated from garbage dumps). If instead of putting billions of dollars trying to stabalize present oil supplies, they put those resources into technology that gets people over oil, they would not only buy a lot of security they would lead the world in new technology instead of being famous for producing giant gas-guzzling cars that are rated as trucks.
Hitchens did answer the morality question but it got covered up with crosstalk. He made the point that people were already aware of the value of the ideals within the ten commandments -before- they arrived at Mount Sinai and (reportedly) got them delivered on stone tablets.
Sailor – Sure, it would be great to tell the Middle East to fuck off. I wonder if anyone did the math and proved out that pursuing this war was better than investing in other energy sources. The US is a partner in the $20 billion fusion project ITER now under construction in France. (France!) If the $2 TRILLION long term cost of this war had been invested in fusion energy would we be much better off? No way to know now, but I wish the debate had been about that instead of WMDs and purple fingers.
Hitchens did answer the questions as far as god groupie Sharpton would allow. Sharpton seems to think in soundbites and can’t listen or understand an argument that takes two sentences or more.
Brent: I think you may be wrong. Hitchens’s first response to the relativism question was “I am not a relativist.” He answered half the question there, then proceeded to show that scripture is unable to even *give* us absolute truth.
Here is what I think:
Hitchens’ answer was basically that 1) he was not a relativist, 2) that the bible offers very poor guide to morality in any case and 3) that our innate morality is enough to construct our criminal law.
Perhaps you are right. Maybe this is an answer. I guess I just think its kind of a crappy one. The first starts to answer the question but I am curious since he claims to not be a relativist if he would therefore claim to be an absolutist. It seems unlikely to me that he would do so even if this is the only other logical conclusion given the philosophical pitfalls of moral absolutism.
The second part of his response is really not relevant. The fact that the bible offers contradictory moral advice does not really answer the question of whether morality comes from God. If on the other hand, the bible were consistent, could we then assume that our morality does come from God?
But its the third part oh his answer that disappoints me the most I think, because it accepts the premise that laws are fundamentally about morality and it appeals to “innate morality” which is a particularly shadowy standard. When someone asks, “where does our morality come from, if not from God?”, I find that the answer that it comes from inside us to be a pretty inadequate response. It begs the question really. Ok so its innate, but how is that defined and where does it come from? Morever, given the easily demonstrable shifting moral standards of human beings through history, it seems pretty easy to dismiss any consistent “innate” morality as a guide to anything.
So, maybe he did answer the question. I stand corrected. His answer was not a very good one in my opinion.
Hitchens did answer the morality question but it got covered up with crosstalk. He made the point that people were already aware of the value of the ideals within the ten commandments -before- they arrived at Mount Sinai and (reportedly) got them delivered on stone tablets.
Looking at the tape again, you are correct. I remembered his point differently when I wrote my previous post at #25.
Hitchens did appear to avoid a question or two. Why did he avoid answering Sharpton’s question about where gravity came from? Why couldn’t he just have said, “I don’t know”? The point is, Sharpton doesn’t know either, but the difference is that Sharpton then makes up an answer – God – and claims he is certain it is true. It seems like such an easy answer for Hitchens to give.
It’s gone back to weapons of mass destruction? I was blah, blah, blahing about how stupid it was to be over there looking for weapons and HA HA, no weapons existed, what a bunch of idiots we looked like UNTIL I saw, “Why We Fight.” Guess what? Our government KNEW there were weapons over there because they have the receipts. “We,” sold the weapons of mass destruction to Hussein.
Sharpton’s entire argument amounts to saying “You can’t say my explanation for X is wrong/unjustified unless you know what the explanation for X is”, which only takes a moment’s reflection to debunk. I may not know how tall the Eiffel tower is, but I know it isn’t 1,000 miles. Likewise, just because you pretend to know the origin of morals and call it “god” doesn’t make your ignorance of the question any less deep than mine. It just makes you less honest about it, to yourself as much as to the rest of us.
It is also worth noting that Sharpton’s implication that morals cannot be timeless and absolute except through god is actually bass-ackwards. For what morality is LESS relative than one that can change any moment in any direction merely at the whim of one being?
1. I agree with all previous posts about how Hitchens’ style doesn’t play well on an American “debate” show. If he can’t get to the point directly, his opponent will interrupt and call evasion, and the audience will agree.
Unfortunately, I think he did completely answer the morality question, but in his own style. He starts by saying “I am not a relativist,” and makes references to our “innate morality,” which is really the key to his argument. He got derailed on explaining why religious morality is neither necessary nor sufficient for a system of laws, however, and didn’t expand enough on how we got the morals he claims we have.
2. What does Iraq have to do with this book and debate? I know Sharpton wants to bring it up to undermine his credibility, and whether that’s effective or not is another matter. But it’s rather slimy to completely steer the discussion to an unrelated topic, and one Sharpton knowns Hitch will be more than happy to gab about. What a shifty little bugger.
3. Anyone else Sharpton’s gradual grammar shift? As he became more flustered he went from “asking” Hitch questions to “axing” him.
Brent: Your instincts serve you well. Don’t apologize.
Hitchens didn’t really answer the question in a coherent way. “I am not a relativist” does not mesh well with the claim that morality is innate, a product of our genes, since we know full well that there is genetic variation in the human population—thus there might well be variation within the population with respect to the moral order. The moment we allow this possibility, the idea of an absolute morality becomes problematic. Certainly not the sort of thing that is likely to be advanced in the street theatre shown in the video.
I hasten to say that the notion that morality depends upon the existence of a supernatural being is also incoherent, not to mention contradicted by evidence. I agree that morality is, to some degree, ‘hard-wired’ and a product of natural selection. Our codifications of that moral sense, however, is not only not ‘hard-wired’, it is fictive.
TW wrote:
Hitchens wasn’t just anti-believer, he was anti-Bible, recall his take on the ten commandments, and Sharpton backed off into a deist position and did not defend the Bible. I wonder why Hitch didn’t point that out, ask Sharpton, “are you a deist or a Christian?” If Sharpton isn’t going to defend the Bible, then where does he get his vision of what God is?
Now I would deal with that by rejecting the “Call that self-organizing ability God if you want,” as a proper definition of God. That definition is too minimal to mean anything religious and can’t be argued with, we can only argue against the mentally anthropic projections people put on the cause of the universe, those assumptions that some entity “desired,” “planned,” “wanted,” “willed,” and “designed” this universe.
I have to admit to a guilty pleasure: TV evangelists.
Every Sunday I flip through the channels and spend a few minutes with each of the god hucksters. I love the way that they can take any verse in the bible and turn it into a commandment that the audience give them money.
“Brothers and sisters, God is omniscient; he knows everything. He is omnipotent; all powerful and he is omnivorous; hungry for anything you can give.
“It is well known that ‘Jesus wept’ (John 11:35) is the shortest complete verse in the Bible. Do you know why Jesus wept, Brothers and Sisters? He wept because you have not sent in your $1,000 seed of faith. You have made Jesus cry; stop his tears by giving.”
Today I watched Mike Murdock (Inspiration Ministries), a god hustler with the looks of a Serbian crime boss, mention the $1,000 seed about 25 times while I was watching. The seed will harvest and make 300 millionaires and he is fairly sure more than that.
The thing I loved about his show was the periodic disclaimer: Miracles are a gift from God and Inspiration Ministries does not guarantee that all who give will receive one.
Truth in advertising and god bless lawyers.
Hitchens did pretty well and he did answer the questions. Sharpton was clueless with the false dicotomy at the end ‘God made gravity if not who did’? Ug.
I thought the most telling thing was that Sharpton thinks gravity has to be either a product of God’s choosing it to be so or a product of our choosing it to be so. (He has the same belief about morality.) Basically he has no concept of objectivity. Everything must be a product of a subjective decision. This is also how very young children think.
Everytime I see one of these discussions it reminds me of the Simpsons episode “Homer at the Bat (1992)”. The dialogue between the patrons of Moe’s goes like this:
Barney: [in Moe’s Tavern] And I say, that England’s greatest Prime Minister was Lord Palmerston!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!
Barney: Lord Palmerston!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!
Barney: Okay, you asked for it, Boggs!
[punches him out]
Moe: Yeah, that’s showing him, Barn’!
[disbelieving]
Moe: Pitt the Elder…
Barney: Lord Palmerston!
[punches him out]
I get the feeling that both sides are posturing for the camera and future book sales.
How dare Sharpton accuse Hitchens of circumventing the question with his “whit”. If by whit he means presenting evidence and facts for why he believes what he believes (something Sharpton knows nothing about) then whit can only be used as a compliment. And the line that really triggered my indignation was Sharpton opining he had no problem with science, which really evinces the fact he knows nothing about science, due to the fact that he’s religious and somehow doesn’t see the incompatibility of the two. Sharpton refuses to debate the existence of god with scripture, so if he’s not using scrpture as his reasoning then what is he using? Certainly he’s not getting his excuses for believing in God from science.
Hitchens didn’t really answer the question in a coherent way. “I am not a relativist” does not mesh well with the claim that morality is innate, a product of our genes, since we know full well that there is genetic variation in the human population—thus there might well be variation within the population with respect to the moral order. The moment we allow this possibility, the idea of an absolute morality becomes problematic. Certainly not the sort of thing that is likely to be advanced in the street theatre shown in the video.
I think the problem is that “morality” gets used to describe subtley different things, and so does “innate” when you are trying to get a word in past someone like Al.
To me, morality is both innate and not genetic. Innate in our being social creatures that are genetically programmed to go along to get along, not genetic in that morality is not based on the individual at all, but on the interactions between individuals.
And could someone please stick a boot up the commenting system here, it’s been giving me old harry for days.
@TW
“The only complaint that Sharpton had about Hitchens that is arguably accurate is that atheists frequently attack religion rather than demonstrating how God is not great.”
I don’t think so. Hitchens, et al. attack the predominant concept of God, the predominant thinking. They obviously can’t attack some objective, universal idea of God because one doesn’t exist. No two cultures, let alone two people, have the exact same idea about God.
And why would you try to attack some objective God, anyways? That has no implications for our society. It’s philosophical meandering, and not really substantive. What does have implications for our society is the gods people do believe in and do worship. And those gods are indistinguishable from religion.
Scott:
I am not understanding your position. While an innate morality may vary among individuals, possibly due to genetic influence, we are really more interested in the morality of larger populations, and the convergent morality that results.
Absolute morality is not a practical concept, and seems a bit of a straw man here — like trying to define an absolutely accurate scientific measurement. As Scientific Avenger points out in post #29, not knowing the height of the Eiffel Tower, but knowing that it is not 1000 miles does not make one a relativist — the lack of absolute knowledge does not mean a total lack of knowledge, and a lack of absolute morality does not imply relative relative. Or am I missing your point?
Because we agree with Hitchens, are we automatically obligated to grant him the edge in the debate?
I don’t think so.
Sharpton never heard of the social contract. Blarg.
Something that bugs me: The correct answer to “who made the law of gravity?” is “spacetime curvature.” There isn’t really a problem of explaining laws anymore. Modern physics describes objects with properties rather than objects governed by abstract laws. For that matter, there’s not really a problem of explaining lawlike behaviour; objects have their properties as a matter of self-identity. I don’t think there’s really room in there for the immanent God who keeps things ticking.
By pointing out that these things have answers you can demonstrate the absurdity of the “Why is there something rather than nothing?” question. We know where all the things we see in the world came from: lifeforms, planets, stars, the heavy elements, etc. Someone asking the same question just a few generations ago would have literally meant “Where did the stars and the birds and the oceans and soil come from?” Now we can explain it all, across billions of years, right up to very soon after the Big Bang. It’s important to emphasise that the actual question being asked is “Where did the hot quark-gluon plasma come from?” I mean, sure, we don’t know exactly; but we do know the answer will say absolutely nothing about human affairs.
Hitchens is often accused of approaching debates like a barroom brawler but next to Sharpton he appeared quite reasonable.
What I found interesting was that when Hitchens pointed out the moral inconsistencies of religious dogma, Sharpton jumped all over it, as though it was an entirely irrelevant subject. Irrelevant? Apparently ‘GOD’ has nothing at all to do with the Ten Commandments, Jesus’ dictums, or even the bible. His God, apparently, is above all that. I guess that’s what makes him so holy. (Sharpton or God, take your pick)
There was one moment when Hitchens seemed to get his wires crossed, when asked about his personal moral impetus for dealing with psychopaths–because he was so focused on the delineating the fallibility of the religious dogmatic approach. And, of course, Sharpton ran with it and spent the rest of the interview unjustly attacking him for being evasive. Toward the end, Sharpton comes off seeming to be willfully obtuse just so he can confuse the issues and keep Hitchens off balance. (What a slimeball).
Sharpton argues like a ten year old at the play ground. He seems to think that all his warm and fuzzy feelings about the existence of God is all the proof anyone needs to refute the unbelievers. And since he knows most people think that way too, his debating style is to try and mobilize the crowd around him by adopting that churchy preaching voice that defenders of the faith spend so much time trying to perfect and say pious things.
This wasn’t a debate, it was Hitchens talking to a wall.
He [Sharpton] has nothing but a demand for an explanation for gravity and morality.
Yep and he thinks that if nobody has a complete explanation for those then he somehow is one-up on the experts, and yet he knows nothing about either one. Or at least that’s what he pretends. In reality he’s probably just another demagogic fleece flocker.
I would like to respond to the points on #38 and #40, but I’m also having troubles with the system whenever I insert a hyperlink. I’ll try back later…SH
I really didn’t see Hitchens being evasive, but two things trip him up. Actually they’re kind of the same thing. He has to build up to every answer with a lengthy preamble explaining his reasoning, and he has to waste time working in every half-clever illustrative figure he’s thought of over the past couple weeks. Which is fair. He is, after all, here to sell books.
So Sharpton basically dives in yelling “you’re not answering the question!” while Hitchens is about midway through answering the question. Sharp’s counterattacks are all bluster, but the sheer volume was enough to throw Hitch off for a bit.
He needs to come up with a shorter response to the “you don’t know how X works, therefore God” thing, though. Were he asking, I’d recommend studying Dawkins’ responses to that sort of question, and then stealing them outright. Also that the phrase “argument from ignorance” gets a lot across efficiently. He could try saying it in Latin if that was more his style, I’m sure most people would work it out eventually.
Ugh, how depressing. Al Sharpton strikes me as having long ago unlearned how to listen to new ideas; he simply expects Hitchens to reproduce arguments he’s already heard in terms he already knows. Moreover, he seems to have no ability to produce the specific from the general.
Sharpton: If God didn’t create gravity, who did?
Hitchens: Atheists need positive evidence that God is present, not a lack of evidence to the contrary.
Sharpton: Why didn’t you answer my question?
Sigh.
The middle-east screwup is not about oil. It’s about religion. Islam, Judaism and Christianity regard each other as heresy. Islam views Christianity as a threat, and the Koran is shot through with unambigous militancy and advocacy of violence toward its enemies. It’s arguable that the Christian authorities (check out Ronald Reagan on this issue) support the Jewish state in Israel partly because the resulting war between Judaism and Islam will bring about the Armageddon they desperately crave. Hitchens is right – religion screws everything up.
I think morality is phenotypical. I like Hitchens’s point that we choose a moral middle-ground between only allowing non-sinners to judge, and taking an eye for an eye. The Bible doesn’t really teach us that middle ground – so where does it come from? Morality is the natural behaviour of the human animal. Only rarely do humans murder their offspring, or start fires, or commit suicide. Yes, these things really are rare – most people don’t steal, or murder.
Chris really should’ve taken his shades off in that situation.
Hitchens is of course generally right about this subject throughout this piece. The very last statement he gets in encapsulates everything though, and atheists really need to say that more often so people are aware of it. Don’t let the churchgoers frame you as a tiny group of people worthy of being smited because they think they know everything.
I will say I’m surprised that they didn’t throttle each other, though there was more to the segment so maybe they did later on. Last time those two were on Maher’s show together Bill had a guest between them to keep them from killing each other. That particular argument was however on the Iraq War, not on religion vs science, so maybe that was the problem…
Why did he avoid answering Sharpton’s question about where gravity came from?
If someone asked you:
“Where does “mass” come from?”
how would YOU answer?
“I don’t know” is actually NOT an appropriate answer.
the question is nonsensical to begin with, unless the asker was interested in the etymology of the word mass itself. Do you really expect Hitch could have explained that during a “hardball” debate with al sharpton???
evasive? not hardly.
how can you be evasive of a non-question?
BTW, when hitch uses the term “innate morality”, I think he is simplifying the observation that there appear to be types of behavior that are looked upon negatively across hundreds of different cultures with radically differing theologies (he even mentions that briefly).
again, do you really expect him, in this context, to explain in detail the entire history of cultural anthropology?
the one thing I DO agree with in the bulk of the commentary here, is that this kind of “forum” (hardball “debates” moderated Fox-News style), is certainly not conducive to thoughtful argument, and it is a puzzlement why Hitch even bothers to participate in them.
must be to increase book sales, IMO.
Hitchens is hot tempered. He needs to get over his knee jerk pugnaciousness when going toe to toe with people like Sharpton. But I don’t think that was so much the problem here. (Well, maybe a little bit).
It would be interesting to see this interview done all over with Dawkins, instead. I suspect he would have gotten the salient points in more efficiently, but I still like the way Hitchen’s mind works.
I think a proper title for this piece would be “Al Sharpton admits the bible is a bunch of crap.” It’d be nice to google Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens and find that title.
If nothing else, these debates show xians retreating in the face of logic, and that should be brought to the fore.
For David Marjanovic:
Regarding the pronunciation of “atheist,” it may be helpful to know that the initial “A” is usually pronounced as a long “A” (rhymes with “hay”) when that “A” has been added to another word to produce the opposite meaning.
Thus, while “apple” has a short “A” (following the general rules of pronunciation), “atypical,” atonal,” amoral,” and “atheist” all have the long “A.” (And, because every exception must have an exception, the word “avocation” has long been in use as a synonym of “hobby,” and thus is rarely thought of in its actual meaning of “the opposite of vocation”—and thus, through usage, has developed the short “A” typical of a word that had the “A” in its original form.)
Not saying it makes any sense at all. But that’s the general idea. :)
That’s not grammar, that’s accent. (Askent?)
That’s not grammar, that’s accent. (Askent?)
Surprised no one has pointed out that the rule of law is not innate (precisely), but the result of evolutionary pressure. Most law is the result of making species survival a bit better (opening the umbrella against the inevitable historic rainstorms). The notion of innate in creationist terms is different than the notion in evolution. Innate for creationists means god-given.
Gravity– My Newton, what a silly riposte. Without gravity, we would not be able to access the web as we do. We might in some other way.
Tom
Sailor said:
“TW, so it is about oil. Does it still make sense? If you put the price of the war on price of oil and gas at the pump no one would buy it and things like solar, wind and garbage would make a lot more sense.
The US is a great country with huge technological resources, it could lead the world in renewable energy (50% of the electricity where I hang out in the US in the summer is generated from garbage dumps). If instead of putting billions of dollars trying to stabalize present oil supplies, they put those resources into technology that gets people over oil, they would not only buy a lot of security they would lead the world in new technology instead of being famous for producing giant gas-guzzling cars that are rated as trucks.”
Perhaps it would have been better to set up a $500 billion “X Prize” for successfully developing viable alternatives (ex. Fusion energy; genetically engineered biodiesel algae; cheap and efficient solar power; etc.) instead of spending it on wars in the Middle East.
I don’t think Hitchens stood up too well from a lay perspective. I doubt most people understood he was answering the questions (like when he said he was not a relativist) then giving a background for his statement. Sharpton either didn’t hear him, didn’t understand him, or took for granted that the audience isn’t listening that carefully, because he played him every which way with the “you didn’t answer the question” line.
Sure, almost everyone here agrees with Hitchens, knows what he’s going to say, and knows what he MEANS, but it all comes off like he’s evasive and unsure of himself, and rambles on and on about unrelated subjects.
I think a lot of news programs LIKE to have Hitchens on, because no matter HOW right he is, he often comes off as unsure, arrogant, or drunk… which makes it a heck of a lot easier for the less educated public to dismiss him.
Just for kicks, I’ll go over to 360 and put up a poll, and see who the GENERAL public thinks did the best here… then I’ll report back…
“The (lack of a) connection between spelling and pronunciation in English never ceases to amaze.”
It’s usually the fault of the French. Y’know, 1066 and all that.
I just don’t understand why Sharpton and others keep asking where we get our morality, and why Hitchens and others have such difficulty explaining such a simple concept.
To me, being moral is either 1) behaving in a way consistant with how others would prefer I behave, or 2) behaving in a way consistant with how I would prefer others behave. Most of the time they are about the same (i.e. I don’t want others to steal from me, and others don’t want me to steal from them….so being more moral would be to not steal from people). Why would anyone think you need a freakin magical deity to explain such a simple concept?
Oh, and with regard to prosecuting criminals: ummm….same reason we send kids to the corner if they misbehave? So they’re less likely to misbehave…? Geez….
I actually think that Sharpton acquitted himself quite well. I don’t agree with him at all. But Sharpton is a smart guy and came off as very smart. I think the comments mentioned before about sound bite culture are quite accurate.
Hitchens is not the best spokesman for this point of view in America. He’s right, he’s well-spoken. You and I may want to hear what he has to say. But most Americans want to hear the Crossfire garbage that passes for argument.
Granted, this may not ever bode well for any serious discourse in the US. But Hitchens will not likely be able to explain to people in the US his perspective effectively.
This is a difficult argument to make, even with very smart people. I’d like to believe that Hitchens or Harris can do it. But they haven’t yet.
I also think that going after Hitchens about the WMD thing and the war is effective. Hitchens really screwed the pooch on that one. I think Harris is in the same boat.
I almost wrote a lot more but it’s late and the wine is keeping me from writing anything but nonesense.
I don’t think Hitchens did a very good job here. I don’t think it was likely that any good conversation would have come out of the format, with the shouting and stuff.
He was right and made good arguments (aside from the Iraq garbage) but it’s not helping. It’s not bad. He’s not wrong.
I’m not sure what it takes to help. I think PZ might be better at this sort of thing, as he lives in small town America and can talk their talk, I would assume.
I’m beginning to realize that somebody from “the heartland” needs to write a book about this stuff.
As much as I love the British prose, I know it’s not going over well with my neighbors in Lincoln, NE.
phat
Oh, I’ll add this. I’m not a “moderate” atheist, or whatever. I think we need to keep hammering this point of view out of serious need, in that if we keep giving the religious point of view its special place in the discourse we won’t much last on this planet. Believe me, I’ve experienced the damage that right-wing and left-wing religion can inspire.
phat
Kent Kauffman wrote:
Thanks — you’ve just given me a title for my blog post on the debate.
As I understand it, the point of the war was not securing oil reserves for our own use, but rather defending the petrodollar standard, without which our debtor economy would tank. Saddam was making overtures to the UN to put his oil on a petroeuro standard, and we couldn’t have that. This is also apparently a big part of the reason we currently have beef with Iran – they are establishing an oil “bourse” (or kind of options market) that is decoupled from the dollar.
See Petrodollar Warfare by William Clark for more.
Kent Kauffman wrote:
Now you may soon be able to search for for the name Al Sharpton and get links with the title: “Al Sharpton admits the bible is a bunch of crap.” You just have to link my blog post — found by clicking on the name “Sharpton” often enough to push it to the top of a Google search.”
shyster said:
Does that tie in somewhere with not spilling your seed on the ground?
One word:
“PWNamism.”
Sigh. Damned typobugs.
“PWNanism.”
When the hell are African-Americans going to get mad about the fact that their ancestors were forcibly converted to Christianity?
They never mention that in slavery reparations.
When the hell are African-Americans going to get mad about the fact that their ancestors were forcibly converted to Christianity?
They never mention that in slavery reparations.
Didn’t you hear Dr. Sharpton, Ph.D.? They have no choice but to accept Christianity. Because atheists can’t tell us where gravity comes from.
Hitchens can be pretty good when he’s sober…
But surely we can find a better spokesman.
You have Hitchens, and you have Dawkins.
If you don’t like either, you’d best try it yourself, because there aren’t really any other options.
“there aren’t really any other options.”
Sure there are; Robert Buckman or Paul Kurtz just off the top of my head.
Of course they aren’t firebreathers like Hitchens so you’ll never see them on the TV I suppose…
Sam Harris?
I find the whole discussion of moral absolutes funny. Theists do not have moral absolutes yet they think they do. for example, if a child was being raped and a person could stop it without any harm to themselves, we would think the person completely immoral if they did not stop the rape. In the case of moral “absoluteness”, then this immorality would apply to everyone and everything. if you do not stop a rape that you could have, you are immoral. Yet theists let their gods off the hook every time. apparently gods are not immoral even though they allow our children to be raped by psychopaths.
the whole concept of absolute morality shouldn’t even be discussed with theists.
I know it’s a cheap cop-out that comes way out of left field*, but just once I’d like to see Hitchens, Dawkins, or any other athiest answer “If God didn’t create gravity, then who did?” with “Oh, I don’t know, how about Baayami or Unkulunkulu? Didja ever consider that, or are the Zulus and Aborigines too primitive to have come up with the ‘right’ god, you damned bigot?!”
I’d love to see Sharpton explain how his is the correct belief.
*Why oh why do we atheists hold ourselves to a higher standard of discourse?
I only watched the first video, but Hitchens came across as a giant asshole. Is he right about God? Sure. But Sharpton seemed tor reasonably counter Hitchens, even though the “where’d gravity come from” question is evasive. I don’t know, I guess I just dislike both of them more now.
Hitchens missed a big point on the absolute vs. relative morality issue: We don’t prosecute criminals based on absolute truth. We prosecute them based on *consensus* truth. Just as a jury decides the facts of each individual case, society collectively decides which actions to define as criminal and punishable in the first place.
If there is anyone reading this who believes in absolute morality: in part of the 20th century, the US criminalized the manufacture, sale and consumption of alcohol. Now it doesn’t. Which position was absolutely right and which one was absolutely wrong, and how do you know? Now apply the same reasoning to tobacco, marijuana, caffeine and cocaine. Which ones is it absolutely right to outlaw, and which ones is it absolutely wrong to outlaw? None? All? Precisely the ones that actually are outlawed in the present-day US?
My position is, we outlawed the ones we felt like outlawing. It isn’t *intrinsically* any more wrong to smoke marijuana than to smoke tobacco, but the current consensus of society is to criminalize it, so if you do smoke marijuana, you risk being imprisoned for it. Not because it’s absolutely wrong, but because society defines it as criminal.
I really wish Hitchens would just admit that he’s dead wrong on Iraq. It makes him look like a fool and allows people to get into silly arguments with him like Sharpton does. It really is a liability.
Has anyone figured out how Hitchens can be so good on some topics and so completely wrong on others? It’s the drinking, isn’t it?