What does Sup Forums think of Christopher Hitchens?

What does Sup Forums think of Christopher Hitchens?

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Possibly the best debater and essayist in recent memory. I often wonder what he would have made of the world today and I think it's a great tragedy that we will never find out.

he was a neocon shill
glad he's dead

He got rekt by William Lane Craig in their debate

Absolutely raped Crooked Hillary

youtube.com/watch?v=UrzyVt1lbpo

His death is the sole reason for our current predicament.
God imagine if his mind was still here to put all the fucktards on shit like QT and american news in their place.

He's the worst Hitchens. Peter is based.

Not very compelling, desu. People like Alvin Plantinga and William Lane Craig are demonstrating that theism is not unreasonable.

Certain interpretations of religion are terrible, I'll give him that, but to denounce any philosophical position besides naturalism is dumb.

That said, at least his brother is still around.
Peter is basically what Sherlock is to Mycroft but it's better than nothing.

He seemed to see through the bullshit like few do.
I too wish he was here today to comment on the times. Are there any half decent atheist/humanists these days?

He also said he wouldn't get rid of it even if he had the option where people like dawkins would.

Muh non sequitur.

He was an establishment hack. Used to push the degenerate atheist agenda onto the Goyim. He never really had any strong arguments and debates where he did win were against very weak opponents. If Allen Watts were alive he'd have made Hitchens piss his little boy pants and scurry away. Watts was a fucking giant and although he never debated his educational level was leagues above Hitchens.

God but he was a fat tub of shit near the end.

Blew out his esophogus with gin.

If he generalized his definition of religion, I'll call him my hero.

>establishment hack
Hitchens made his career out of being a contrarian. How the fuck was he establishment?

this
peter is moral
M O R A L
O
R
A
L

William Lane Craig says its ok to commit genocide if God says to do it. But explain to me the difference between hearing a god's voice in your head and being schizophrenic.

Young earth creationism has no place in the 21st century.

supported blair, supported iraq & war on terror even after no WMD's.

he never backdown he was a liberal hawk and a shill

Prohint, they're both equally retarded and overrated.

Pfft. He was good at quips, nothing more.

Honestly quite a shallow intellect.

Peter speaks Russian you should be grateful he bothered to learn your spack language

He died and became Bannon.

Can you find evidence of him supporting the invasion of Iraq? I didn't think he did.

>William Lane Craig says its ok to commit genocide if God says to do it

By definition, it is.

>But explain to me the difference between hearing a god's voice in your head and being schizophrenic.

There is none. This is not what actually happens to religious people though, just a small minority of schizophrenics who latch onto religious movements.

I have a question for you: do you believe that other minds exist? Other than your own?

this
>muh moralism
>but I'm an atheist and openly show contempt for any sort of religion
>but we need to defend muh good goys in Iraq
>Hitchens made his career out of being a contrarian.
Except he was only contrary to what it was popular to oppose.
The only thing he didn't oppose which he should have was the War in Iraq.
He got btfo by that one Jew.
>concise argument about impiety leading to moral degeneration
>evidence is impiety seems to be an almost necessary perequisite to totalitarian regimes see :Communism and the like
>"But religion can be totalitarian too!"
>"Hitler said God with us a few times!"
The dude was a shit debater, beneath Molyneux, his essays are subpar in light of recent historical writers like Chesterton.
That said he was the unimpressive last breath of a dying breed of English Commentators, which is a compliment since no other nation on earth has been able to produce writers and speakers on par with Classical Greece like England did.

>He got rekt by William Lane Craig in their debate
Uh, you better go back and watch it again Sparky. Hitchens mopped the fucking floor with Craig's face.

Hitchens was one of the great writers, debaters and intellectuals of our time.

>Peter is based.
You really like peter doncha? Bet you've got a mouthful right now.

The genocide example is used to prove that God is unnecessary for morality and we derive it independently.

Also Idealism is a shitty theory that nobody seriously considers.

HE'S THE BEST

RIP

>theism is not unreasonable.
Beliefs are not rational, therefore theism is inherently unreasonable.

>"You can't prove God exists!"
>"But I can give an argument for his existence."
>"I disagree with your argument."
>"You can't prove God exists."
Maybe if he didn't go against lightweights people would have respected him more. There's no reverence to be had in someone for going after low hanging fruit.

I do believe other minds exists. I also don't see any compelling evidence for a god. So when someone says their favourite fictional character says its OK to commit genocide if they say so, I am a bit bothered by that and I would say that person is immoral.

are you joking? are you talking about the invasion only or the invasion and subsequence occupation and war on terror

>Beliefs are not rational
Prove the rational exists without using the irrational (tautology)! Can't do it huh?!
>smugkant.jpg
Dawkins is an idiot, he thinks his work in biology somehow makes him an expert on world religion.
>"Hey I'm a lawyer! Now let me tell you how best to play baseball."

>"You can't prove God exists!"
Why would you even try? Beliefs are forever outside the realm of logic, reason, evidence, critical thinking. No amount of wishing imaginary gods are real makes them real.

>"But I can give an argument for his existence."
It can't be a logical argument if it includes a supernatural being that must be taken on faith as a premise.

Why is it theists are endlessly trying to rationalize their irrational beliefs? Don't they know what fallacies are? Incapable of critical thought?

> Dawkins is an idiot, he thinks his work in biology somehow makes him an expert on world religion.

Funny, do you bat an eye with an apologist tries to science? William has no education in evolutionary biology but that doesn't stop him trying to lecture people on why he thinks it is false.

You can not rationally prove your own existence to yourself. The Law of Identity and principle of non-contradiction have no proofs independent of themselves, they are tautological in nature (accepted on faith), but you are in a biological disposition to think this way, just as you have a biological disposition to eat, now do you think the biological disposition towards God is evidence there is no God? As if your disposition towards truth is proof there is none? or disposition for the satisfaction of hunger is a proof food does not exist?

I prefer his brother, lawful good Hitchens

>Prove the rational exists without using the irrational (tautology)! Can't do it huh?!
>more like taunt-ology
>"Nothing is real, therefore god exists"
This is why sensible people laugh at you.

>he thinks his work in biology somehow makes him an expert on world religion.
His work on biology led him to anti-theist activism.
I have not once heard him appeal to his authority as a biologist in argument against religion that weren't expressly related to biology, e.g. evolution
Actually it's unfair to say he's appealing to his authority there because he actually has several talks where he explains in detail how the major religions are wrong because of evolution

He and Peter Hitchens went at it a good deal.

Great debater but I feel that he just loved to be a contrarian as he could reasonably get away with.

Last I checked Craig doesn't care about or even address biology, he said if Man evolved then man evolved. He doesn't argue evolution.
Though he should, the theory is rife with iniquity and breaks in reasoning, anyone with experience in the field knows this.
>but its the only thing we have
Therefore it's correct? No doubt man came from something, but there's no coherent understanding of what that something is. I keep asking the archaeologists where they dig up the arrows connecting the skeletons, I just get blank stares and uncomfortable silence.

Oh boy it's the old equivocation of faith argument again.

To quote Hitchens in the OP video, you strike me as somebody who has never looked into arguments that contradict your position.

>now do you think the biological disposition towards God is evidence there is no God?

I really don't understand the point you are trying to make here. It's sounds like you're trying to say that I am saying I think God isn't real because a bunch of people believe he is, which is not the case.

I actually like both brothers, they have an interesting thought process.

No they didn't
They had one significant public debate on religion and it was shit because Peter had audio issues the entire time

He's the superior Hitchens

His brother is not on his level yet

This. He could have argued the world was flat, and won.

Fuck The Shills, Come Fight For Kekistant!
discord.gg/7ZBqx3m

The most intelligent man since Einstein.

>Beliefs are forever outside the realm of logic, reason, evidence, critical thinking.
prove logic, reason, evidence, and then subsequently critical thinking exist without being irrational or appealing to belief.
>inb4 "but I haven't read Kant"
You want to talk a big game about religion, then take your shot. Prove there can be anything but belief. Those who criticize faith simply don't understand it.
>It can't be a logical argument if it includes a supernatural being that must be taken on faith as a premise.
But faith is never in the premise any more than it's in the premise of a mathematical proof.
>why is it theists
Probably because they don't like idiots who don't read talking about religion.

>Though he should, the theory is rife with iniquity and breaks in reasoning, anyone with experience in the field knows this.

Extraordinary. If "everyone" who has a PhD in evolutionary biology "knows this", show me some peer reviewed scientific papers that agree with you.

>I keep asking the archaeologists where they dig up the arrows connecting the skeletons, I just get blank stares and uncomfortable silence.

Perhaps because they realize in that moment that you're retarded? Arrows aren't necessary to establish morphological progression.

>equivocation of faith argument
>he thinks Pascal and Kant were wrong
Go to bed, Peter, no point in shilling for your brother.
I don't even fall under the category of "theistic"

Hitchen was mostly based. not afraid to go up against religion, Christianity and Islam (he didn't take any bullshit from Prager types unlike most current "new atheist liberals"), criticized Israel, criticized Turkey

his support for US interventionism and some of his stances about it were unfortunate but he truly believed in the helpful part of that mission, not just shilling for American interests

a lot of his statements and ideas have been taken completely ouf context by various groups of people too

Christopher Hitchens was one of the finest human beings I have ever encountered. I miss him dearly.

>evidence there is no God?
There is strong inductive evidence that no gods exist.
Thousands of made-up gods and thousands of made-up religions came before the ones you have today. You don't believe in them, do you? Ra, Odin, Jupiter, Zeus, we treat them as mythology and fairy tales. None of them ever existed.

Why would yours be any different?

no, I don't know what you think. I'm just saying all things considered. The Evidence of God is biological as much it is philosophical and to a subsequent category, spiritual.

>>"Nothing is real, therefore god exists"
I think you got him.
This is why atheists don't speak out, they don't enjoy being represented by the majority of idiots within their...call it an intellectual disposition.

Explain how there is biological evidence for God.

>the theory is rife with iniquity and breaks in reasoning

evolution is not a moral stance, therefore it has nothing to do with 'iniquity' and as far as I'm concerned there isn't a 'break' in reasoning

>His work on biology led him to anti-theist activism.
That alone makes him a clown.

>His work on biology led him to anti-theist activism.
How in the hell did he conclude that from biology? I can understand history.
He doesn't commit the fallacy because he makes no actual arguments, there is no premise from which he can be fallacious from.
Don't you think it's implied or nudged that he is riding off his credentials and framing every speech in terms of "science vs religion"?
nah, they were probably both on the same page around the dinner table and did these public debates (which were few and far between) as publicity stunts rather than two Englishmen having a brawl through discourse.

Didn't agree with him on many things, particularly with Iraq, but I do miss having him on this plane. I hope he is at peace with his mother in the next life, if it turns out he is wrong about that sort of thing.

whatever you think of Dawkins's general views adn advocacy, at the very least modern biology finally destroyed any potential arguments from design

He really got fat after Jurassic Park.

>at the very least modern biology finally destroyed any potential arguments from design
How? It's all the same old argument. Might as well say that God doesn't exist because evil exists.

>Show me one Theist who isn't a theist and I'll become an atheist.
before you twist your knickers that was an example. Appealing to intellectual totalitarianism isn't science.
youtube.com/watch?v=k7gZhksK9Sw
I think should suffice to whet your appetite for further investigation.

Worst Hitchens. His brother is superior.

skillful debater and essayist, also an establishment/neo-con scumbag. Overrated aswel, as with the exception of George Galloway iv never seen anyone with a half a brain debate him, easy to look like a genius when your surrounded by retards. Awful logic on many issues (throws Buddhism and Islam into the same basket) ect. Allot of religions are bad imo, but some arnt and the ones that are arnt equally bad. He just gives blanket equivocations usually citing the main Abrahamic religions. He never gradates them according to doctrine, which reveals a seldom understood fact about him, which is that he was politically correct

Islam is shittier religion than Christianity by any reasonable measure. Buddhism on the other hand isnt at all warlike ect. Fuck any kind of nuanced examination of the specifics tho ''all relijun is bad duhh''. Did i say he was skilled earlier ? iv just changed my mind, he was a retard

not at all. we have a conclusive, verified theory in that domain now

I didn't say it destroyed every philosophical argument for the existence of God, how could it

I asked for research papers buddy. Not a YouTube video. I hope that isn't the extent of your research.

>prove logic, reason, evidence, and then subsequently critical thinking exist without being irrational or appealing to belief.
I don't need to. We all innately know they exist in our shared reality.

We sit 20 scientists down and ask them about the scientific method, we get the same answer 20 times.

We sit 20 religious people down and ask them to describe their gods in detail, we get 20 radically different answers. Because despite the fact that they meet weakly for indoctrination, coaching and to compare notes, their gods exist only as contrivances in their heads.

>You want to talk a big game about religion, then take your shot
It's simple. Religions are made-up. Gods are made up.

>Those who criticize faith simply don't understand it.
People can have faith in a lot of things, but faith in imaginary friends is unhealthy.

>But faith is never in the premise any more than it's in the premise of a mathematical proof.
You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?

>How in the hell did he conclude that from biology?
Because literally every significant modern religion contradicts modern science.

>framing every speech in terms of "science vs religion"?
Because it is in terms of what he's interested in.

They actually said it was astute and then asked me to come back when they were having some no name lecturer come in talking about dating fossils, but okay, we will go with what you said.
Arrows are necessary to establish a morphological progression. Anything else would be math but without symbols, you can have the idea, but if you cant represent it, and even then, it's not the representation but the gestalt of it.

A useful idiot that serve his purpose them when he wake up it was to late and got kill by the elites.

Pascal and Kant WERE wrong. Especially Pascal. Pascal had a habit of begging the question.
Like look his 'wager" the wager assumes that the only two options are a christian viewpoint and atheism. What about the other 10,000 view points?

> Lots of people believe in the supernatural, but differ in the details
> This somehow proves the supernatural
6/10, made me reply

>strong inductive evidence that no gods exist.
I'd say that's a matter of opinion more than anything else.
>thousands of made up gods
Actually there don't seem to be any made up gods, or at least no evidence for them. They all seem derived from a proto divine idea. think of the Indo-European god who became, Woden and Tiwar, and Thuisco, and Tautais and Erudino and Zeus and Mars and many more. To say the word "Sun" in three different languages doesn't prove three different Suns, nor does it make the existence of THE Sun unlikely.
You're a pleb and you know it.

> disproves
damnit

* Hated the Clintons
* Hated Islam
* Independent mind and free thinker

Prediction: He would have supported Trump. :)

>intelligent design

fucking lol. Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism is the most interesting recent argument offered by theists

Craig's cosmological argument is interesting too but it's helped by the fact that it involves a domain where intuitive human understanding of being, existence and the like start to break down

>we have a conclusive, verified theory in that domain now
Not really. As Tolstoy says, evolution is only a variation of what can happen will happen.

burden of proof you retard. It's not up to me to prove your bullshit. You need to show us the supernatural exists, but you can't. Therefore, it would be silly for me to believe it without some sort of evidence of it or being able to detect its effect.

Explain how there is biological evidence for food.
It's inductive, we have natural urges to seek for things, like I said, food, and then I suppose more things like water, love, the whole pyramid. Why is religion such a special case all of sudden?
Inadequacy
sry no bully

The break in the reasoning is its tautological. Judging fitness and survival by each other is tautological.
for instance
>The tiger is fit because it survives
>it survives because it is fit
>these traits equate to greater fitness thus greater survivability
>its survivability is judged by its fitness
That's entry level of course, and its a theoretical discrepancy, but it has yet to be addressed. Stagnation is a sign of degeneration.

>there are thousands of made up Gods

>ACTUALLY IT SEEMS THEY MIGHT ALL BE BASED ON A SIMILAR IDEA AND [VERBAGE]
Wow your appeals to completely unrelated arguments sure does make you smart.
Guess you win this one, burger.
How about instead of dodging challenges or demands for evidence with random clips of unrelated philosophy you actually address them.

this is just argument from semantics

saying they all seem to derive from a 'proto divine idea' is a huge stretch. It implies that they were really monotheists in the first place who split up the one god into many gods, called them different names and attributed different qualities but actually believed they were the same one being (which isn't true). It sounds like an indian guru saying that all indian deities are just the 1 superior brahman godhead. It's nonsense.

This is really all you can respond with? Explain the inductive reasoning behind a god then. And even better, the inductive reasoning behind your particular flavour of religion and Christianity.

I didn't realize Tolstoy was a biologist. Let me go ask Ayn Rand about this tumor I have.

Hitchens is a cool, smooth talking guy. Very articulate. It's fun to watch him roast idiots.

Also his ideas concerning religion aren't much different than a teenagers. He does a good job of cataloguing statistics related to political atrocities committed by zealots.

>I keep asking the archaeologists where they dig up the arrows connecting the skeletons, I just get blank stares and uncomfortable silence.

That's the awkward silence when they realize the person they're talking to is an ideologue who won't apply logic to a problem because they've already decided what to believe.

>I asked for research papers buddy. Not a YouTube video. I hope that isn't the extent of your research.
I knew you'd say that. Now, I know you don't like the ID movement but if I gave you links to their papers, you would what? Investigate further or discredit their movement as "Not real science"? You're putting me in a know win situation. It is like the example I gave, "Give me a theist who isn't a theist and then I'll become an atheist." You're asking me to give you the opinion of someone who doesn't hold THAT specific opinion. You think these guys get grant money by writing about the things they don't know?
youtube.com/watch?v=S89IskZI740
Another user used to post this in these threads. I agree with most of what he says.

>I didn't realize Tolstoy was a biologist
He doesn't need to be one, you fucking brainlet. He's talking metaphysics

>INDIVISIBLE GUIDE: LEFTIST ORGANIZATION TRAINING PEOPLE TO DISRUPT AND HARASS
>founded by (((EZRA LEVIN))) and (((LEAH GREENBERG))) former democratic staffers

www.indivisibleguide.com

Hitchens is OK on Muslims but nothing more

>Based AF

>Actually there don't seem to be any made up gods, or at least no evidence for them. They all seem derived from a proto divine idea.
>They all seem derived from a proto divine idea.
>They all seem derived from a proto divine idea.
>They all seem derived from a proto divine idea.

citation please?

Nietzsche talked metaphysics. I guess he'll know about evolutionary biology.