…and this is a 
So I'm having a few niggling little health problems, but all is well and getting better; meanwhile, Christopher Hitchens mentions this:
"Well, I'm dying, since you asked," Hitchens replied. "So are you, but I'm doing it faster and in more rich and fecund detail."
And what does he do? He gallops off to Birmingham to debate that supercilious pompous nitwit, David Berlinski. And by all accounts, whips him into slime. I am extremely impressed with Hitchens right now.
I'm not at all impressed with Berlinski, but then I never have been. He dredged up the rotting corpse of Hitler to claim he was under the spell of Darwin!
When Berlinski linked Nazism and Darwinism while connecting atheism with violent government regimes of the 20th Century, Hitchens bristled and went on the attack in his next turn at the podium.
Connecting Nazism with Darwinism "is a filthy slander," Hitchens said. "Darwinism was derided in Germany."
Hitchens said Adolf Hitler claimed in "Mein Kampf" that he was doing God's work with his policies against the Jews and that the first Nazi treaty was with the Vatican.
"To say that there is something fascistic about my beliefs, I won't hear said, and you shouldn't believe," Hitchens said to the audience, almost thundering despite his diminished voice.
Good grief, please. Hitler was a nominal Catholic with an extremist pseudo-scientific philosophy that excluded Darwin and evolution, and found justification in religious dogma. It's absolutely nuts that people still play this game of blaming Darwin for the Nazis; there's just no historical reason to do so. Why not settle on that mass murdering tyrant, Stalin, instead? He was no friend of Darwin, either, but at least he was openly atheist, so they'd at least have a tiny pinch of logic (but not much of one) in correlating atheism and tyranny. At least, pointing at one godless anti-Darwinian and blaming all his crimes on godless evolution is marginally more sensible than pointing at a god-walloping anti-Darwinian and blaming all of his sins on godless evolution.
Another bizarre bit from the story is this little anecdote from Taunton, the organizer of the debate:
Taunton said he drove Hitchens to Birmingham this week from the Washington, D.C., area, and had Hitchens read aloud the prologue of the Gospel of John, which they then discussed.
Hitchens referred to that in the debate, saying that if Taunton found out Jesus did not exist, it would ruin his life.
Taunton responded at the end of the debate. "It would ruin my life," he said. "It would suggest this life is a sham."
Hitchens shook his head. "Don't give up so easily," he said.
Exasperating nonsense. It ruins your life to believe that an old book of fables is all that gives it meaning. What would be a sham is the wasted investment in promoting lies; that isn't corrected by insisting on continuing to live on falsehoods.
Comments
Posted by: Free Lunch
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September 8, 2010 11:13 AM
He went to _that_ Birmingham? I'm impressed that the god-botherers allowed it.
Way to go Hitch.
Posted by: Free Lunch
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September 8, 2010 11:20 AM
From the article: "Berlinski, a mathematician who lives in Paris, described himself as a secular Jew who defends the religious worldview because of its moral imperatives that he finds lacking in atheism."
So Berlinski doesn't believe in God, but does believe in the value of using religion to manipulate people. What a disgusting attitude to have toward others.
Posted by: andrew h
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September 8, 2010 11:24 AM
they drove from DC to birmingham AL? for a debate? what a hero...
Posted by: gussnarp
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September 8, 2010 11:26 AM
I may dislike Hitchen's politics, but he does know how to use words, and on religion he is dead on.
Posted by: psycchick
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September 8, 2010 11:26 AM
Hitchens continues to be a leader and set an example for everyone. In the face of his illness, he continues to discuss, debate, and engage. He is showing us how to live while dying.
I wanted to go read more from the debate, but couldn't find one. Here's a link to a news story sharing the above quotes: http://blog.al.com/spotnews/2010/09/atheist_author_christopher_hit_1.html
I had great fun reading the comments.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmqD_mcUIrSfOTlK3iGVsnEDcZmI43srbI
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September 8, 2010 11:26 AM
I think the phrase "supercilious twit" was coined with Berlinski in mind.
Also the phrase "insufferable asshole".
Also the phrase "pseudo-intellectual gasbag."
The rest of you may now pile on...
Posted by: Rorschach
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September 8, 2010 11:26 AM
The title of the debate was "Does atheism poison everything" ? How cute.
Sure, because it's atheists that have been running the show for the last 2000 years.Oh, wait...
Posted by: clausentum
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September 8, 2010 11:27 AM
Splendid retort.
Posted by: mhogan
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September 8, 2010 11:28 AM
Any word of a video of this debate online? Berlinski wrote a great book about 15 years ago, "A Tour of the Calculus". Since then it's been all downhill intellectually for him. I suppose one can take the first derivative of his intellectual decline and see when it will hit the minimum. Hmmm.
Posted by: gussnarp
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September 8, 2010 11:29 AM
@andrew h
while reading the Bible. I imagine this makes the suffering of his illness feel like a walk in the park.Posted by: Silič O'Nopolitanopoulos, Färschdbischuf Beesknees aus Ulm und Klein Elguth, Elector Pharynguline.
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September 8, 2010 11:30 AM
Oh. There's another Birmingham? You Yanks really need to get some names of your own.
Also, Free Lunch, I know you're quoting, so scarequotes might not be in order, but please at least add a {sic!} after the claim that Berlinski is a 'mathematician'.
Posted by: Katharine
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September 8, 2010 11:30 AM
Taunton's life is already a sham if he believes his life depends on a 2000-year-old book of fables.
Posted by: jaranath
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September 8, 2010 11:31 AM
Free Lunch: Apparently that's the same philosophy held by some of the founding (and current) Neocons.
I don't understand Taunton's view on life...but I know people like him. I know one poor miserable guy in particular who'd probably destroy himself--either suicide or just self-destructive behavior--if not for his faith. It's one if the things about religious faith I find most disturbing.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmqD_mcUIrSfOTlK3iGVsnEDcZmI43srbI
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September 8, 2010 11:32 AM
@ #2...Berlinski is an employee of the "Discovery Institute".
He is a prostitute. If someone on the "other side" paid him $1 more, he would change his position in a nanosecond.
Posted by: raven
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September 8, 2010 11:33 AM
Just read Hitchen's God is not great a few days ago.
Very easy to read, well written.
Hitchens might have a shorter life than many in terms of years. But in terms of thought and experience, more than most of us.
Posted by: pasadena beggar
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September 8, 2010 11:38 AM
The news story (at PZ's link; also posted above) says that the debate was taped and will be broadcast as a later date by C-Span, and that highlights of the debate will be on the TV show "60 Minutes".
If you get a chance, read the comments at the same link. At times, hilarious. The rest of the time, scarier than hell.
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
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September 8, 2010 11:42 AM
... however, considering how well he did against Hitch, I'm thinkin', we really wouldn't want him on our side...
... which leads me to figure it'd probably go to a bidding war: the religionists trying to pay Berlinski to take the atheist side, the atheists trying to pay him more not to...
Guy could make some real money here, methinks, if he'd just sell himself right.
Posted by: https://me.yahoo.com/a/1z4fCCIqg5ciyPSRxYpRxfv8tvX5aoDzh.FNq7FCY90Iq7I-#801b5
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September 8, 2010 11:44 AM
I disagree that Stalin was atheist, exactly. He developed a cult of personality with himself at the center, so he really built a religion with Stalin as god.
Posted by: ThirdMonkey
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September 8, 2010 11:45 AM
I propose that henceforth in any debate if one side at any time uses the Reductio ad Hitlerum argument then that side automatically concedes.
Posted by: MKH from DFW
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September 8, 2010 12:05 PM
Of course, it is well established that the science of aerodynamics is untrue because on September 11, 2001, a bunch of religious fanatics commandeered planes and flew them into buildings.
Posted by: truthspeaker
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September 8, 2010 12:06 PM
I imagine the Saxons say the same thing about Wessex, Essex, Sussex, and Middlesex. Americans didn't invent the concept of naming places in their new country after places in the country they emigrated from.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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September 8, 2010 12:17 PM
It depends on how old they are if giving up on Jesus/God would ruin their lives. It's fine to say "Don't give up so easily," but if they're in their 50s or beyond, a lot of them wouldn't be likely to be able to come to terms with it.
That's what "worldviews" are really about, how difficult they can be to give up and to get another. Having a stupid worldview isn't any excuse for anyone's stupid claims.
Glen Davidson
Posted by: CJO
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September 8, 2010 12:23 PM
I imagine the Saxons say the same thing about Wessex, Essex, Sussex, and Middlesex. Americans didn't invent the concept of naming places in their new country after places in the country they emigrated from.
Same principle, I suppose, but "Saxon" was actually not a toponym, a name of a place or after a place, it was from seax, the characteristic knife carried by Germanic-speaking peoples of diverse geographical origins who banded together in raiding parties which collectively came to be called Saxons. The Angles, on the other hand, were a distinct tribal group from a region called Angeln in what is now northern Germany, so, really, England, the whole country, took its name from another place.
Posted by: JackC
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September 8, 2010 12:32 PM
True, but Bill Cosby's routine on how Poughkeepsie got it's name was truly a priceless creation.
JC
Posted by: Aagrajag
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September 8, 2010 12:34 PM
@jaranath, #13
I knew such a person. A fundamentally (sorry) nice person whose personal insecurities made him prey for the fundies.
He was already somewhat awkward, socially, but this development crippled him. He was a 28-year-old virgin, frustrated beyond reason, when he encountered the meanest, fattest, most unpleasant and controlling woman I've yet to encounter. She showed sexual interest in him, and nine months later...
He, of course, married her. She is physically and emotionally abusive, keeps *his* cell phone in *her* name, that she can monitor him at will.
He loves his daughter, but knows that divorce (thanks, bullshit family court!) would mean that he would probably not see his daughter again.
I met him some time ago; he was doing odd jobs at a department store. I do not doubt for a moment that he would kill himself but for two things:
#1: his daughter
#2: his faith
Please note that (#2) produced (#1). The faith that created this terrible, inescapable situation now keeps him alive. I doubt that he's aware of the joke.
Posted by: te24hours
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September 8, 2010 12:40 PM
I think what ruins people's lives (among other things) is being forced to adhere to someone else's idea of spirituality. And as much as I've looked, no one in the skeptical "new" atheist movement has EVER suggested banning churches, forbidding religion, etc.. Forcing one's spiritual (or lack of spiritual) views on others seems exclusively the provenance of the religious.
Posted by: Moggie
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September 8, 2010 12:44 PM
Notice the choice of words. If he'd said "it would suggest that my life is a sham", I'd have found that very sad, and argued against it, but it is his life, so he gets to decide what gives it meaning. But no, he phrases it in a way which suggests that human life in general would be a sham. This is backwards. If the Christians are right, it's the afterlife which is the real deal, while the few moments we have on Earth are almost irrelevant in comparison. Whereas if the atheists are right, this life is all we have, and as real and meaningful as it gets.
I can understand not being happy with life: as a sufferer from depression, that's all too familiar to me. But feeling that the only thing which gives your life meaning is clinging to a fantasy that there's something better afterwards? This has always struck me as strange. So, even when I'm depressed, I can look at a Christian and think: you poor bastard.
Posted by: bhoytony
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September 8, 2010 12:47 PM
"Americans didn't invent the concept of naming places in their new country after places in the country they emigrated from. "
Surely the people who named them were English.
Posted by: csreid
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September 8, 2010 12:48 PM
Among her other evils, you really think her girth is relevant?
Posted by: DrivenB4U
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September 8, 2010 12:50 PM
Interesting... David Berlinski is one of the prime sources that the evolution-bashers at Wretched Radio summoned for their latest travesty, What Hath Darwin Wrought?, that basically tries to link Darwinism to all our social ills today.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 12:54 PM
Berlinski's a moron but at least he's a moron who knows calculus!
What the hell does Hitchens know about ANYTHING, other than cheerleading for foreign massacres and throwing up on people?
Naturally he wants to spend his time debating religious crazies. It's like shooting fish in a barrel and doesn't expose him to any real challenge. A half decent intellectual would mop the floor with this silly fool, who happens to be about the WORST spokesman for atheism who ever lived. In a recent vanity Fair piece, he says that cancer is not alive--it's an inanimate object!
Science has more than its share of principled, valiant and well-spoken defenders. It needs this (scientifically illiterate) jerk like a hole in the head.
Posted by: Aagrajag
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September 8, 2010 12:56 PM
@csreid
As yet another failing, yes.
He himself was not unattractive, just very shy. Under other circumstances, he could have done far better.
She was his inferior in almost every way. Where he is kind, she is cruel. Where he is intelligent, she is incurious. And where she is grotesquely obese, he is healthy and slim.
So yes, voluntary morbid obesity is worthy of shame.
Posted by: Olga
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September 8, 2010 1:11 PM
I was there at the debate. Didn't expect much of Berlinski anyway, but he totally disgraced himself. Said that totalitarian atheistic dictators promoted crackpottery science, like Stalin promoted Darminism. Well, crackpottery promoted by Stalin was completely anti-darwinian. He also said that if you consider only "real and serious" sciences, namely math and physics, than no (serious) scientist would ever write a book denying the existence of God. Biologists are not considered as serious scientists in his view. Later he apparently recalled recently announced Hawking book, and spent some time mocking Hawking: "yes, he says he knows, he calculated, he did that science that nobody will ever understand, and he is, of course, physicist, who did some real work but 30-40 years ago... Completely disgusting. I'd be boiling if not concentrating on Hitchens.
Posted by: natural cynic
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September 8, 2010 1:29 PM
Hitchens seems to be fulfilling a quote from Jimmy Buffett's song "I'm Growing Older But Not Up":
I'd rather die while I'm living than live while I'm dead
We should all be so lucky
Posted by: spencertroxell
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September 8, 2010 1:40 PM
Hitchens inspires me.
I would like to see him write some kind of atheist version of 'A Grief Observed'.
Posted by: Richard Dawkins
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September 8, 2010 1:55 PM
The word "Darwin" does not appear anywhere in the entire text of Mein Kampf. Not once. "God" appears many times.
Posted by: seanjreynolds
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September 8, 2010 2:00 PM
Quick word count of Mein Kampf (James Murphy translation sans translator's introduction):
Christian/Christianity = 18 (used in "Christian-Socialist")
God = 4
Goddess = 4 (used in phrases like "the hand of the goddess of eternal justice and inexorable retribution")
Divine = 2
Atheist/Atheism = 0
Darwin/Darwinism = 0
Evolution/Evolutionary = 0
It means nothing, but you might as well throw those stats without context at the bullshitters who say the nazis were avowed atheists. Be prepared for "not MY God" responses. If anyone wants to give it a more thorough look feel free, ridiculous bar charts floating around the internet never hurt anyone.
Posted by: seanjreynolds
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September 8, 2010 2:02 PM
Correction, God/Gods = 10
Posted by: Vicki, Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
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September 8, 2010 2:03 PM
*sigh*
Stalin did not promote Darwinism. He made Lamarckism (under the name Lysenkoism) official doctrine, at the cost of famine and large numbers of lives.
If there's a case where "Darwinism" is a useful term, this is it: to distinguish from conflicting theories of evolution.
Posted by: Heaventree
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September 8, 2010 2:06 PM
One thing that must absolutely slay the goddists who have the lack of good sense to engage Dawkins and Hitch in these public shellackings is how well the Brits (yes, I know Hitch is now an American citizen) know and understand Holy Writ. It makes the beat-downs that much more sweet.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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September 8, 2010 2:09 PM
Aagrajag @ 32;
And you have determined that the obesity of the person in question is entirely 'voluntary' and is in no degree exacerbated or contributed to by factors outside her control... how exactly?
Argumentum ad 'shut-up-fatty' does not hold very much water with rationalists. A person's weight has precisely nothing to do with the validity of their argument or their worth as a human being, and using BMI as a cudgel against a woman starts to skirt issues of how concepts of female 'value' are constructed in a still sexist, gender-normative culture.
Posted by: A. Nuran
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September 8, 2010 2:13 PM
Fuck Christopher Hitchens
I know he's dying. I know you agree with a lot of his beliefs on the silliness of religion. But he always was scum and is scum to this day.
Hate to say it, but even Lee Atwater damnatio memoriae is morally superior to this sorry specimen. When he was in his last days Atwater had a moment of self-reflection and begged the forgiveness of the people he had wronged. He acknowledged that he had ruined many good men and women and that it was evil.
Hitchens, by contrast, is spending his last days spewing hatred and bile from the pages of Slate. In this article he keeps whipping up hatred and bigotry. Muslims are subhuman filth. They're all out to kill and enslave us. They don't deserve freedom or legal protection the way people like Christopher Hitchens do.
But fuck Christopher Hitchens. He spreads hate. He loves bigotry. He was always a cheerleader for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Even when it became apparent that we went in based on lies he only said "More!" Torture didn't bother him. The hundreds of thousands of men, women and children we murdered partly in his name don't matter as long as it was rug-thumping sand niggers who were starved, shot or burned.
May he go to his grave unmourned and forgotten. And if, against all evidence, there is justice in some afterlife I hope he suffers the torments he was so happy to inflict on others. Every last one of them.
I certainly won't shed a tear for him.
Posted by: THEHARMONIKZ
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September 8, 2010 2:29 PM
I love my left testicle,I do,however if I thought for one minute that giving it to the Hitch would prolong his life-longer than it takes me to ridicule Behe's hair-cut,then pass the knife.
Reluctantly yours.
Posted by: cmadden35
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September 8, 2010 2:33 PM
I was at the debate in Birmingham last night. It was my first time ever attending this type of event, so I wasnt quite sure what to expect. I was VERY surprised at the loud support that Hitchens received from the audience. It was a pleasant surprise to see so many nonbelievers in Alabama. I'm a native Southerner and I don't personally know any atheists in my area.
Berlinski was boring and frequently wandered off topic. I thought it was interesting that he described religious people as "cripples on crutches". And he was supposed to be arguing FOR religion.
Hitchens was funny, direct (but not rude), clear and obviously the superior mind in the room.
The moderator said that the debate would be aired on CSPAN in the near future but no date was set. Also, 60 minutes was there filming a special on Hitch.
Posted by: Vicki, Chief Assistant to the Assistant Chief
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September 8, 2010 2:50 PM
Maybe Berlinski has noticed that crutches are in fact useful.
If one believes that religious people are crippled, it's not sufficient or appropriate to just take away the crutches and leave them lying on the sidewalk. Offer physical therapy, or surgery, or a wheelchair, or whatever other extension of the metaphor is appropriate.
We don't (at least most of us don't) run around saying "God doesn't love you, it's all hopeless, life is meaningless, you're doomed!"
Posted by: spaninquis
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September 8, 2010 2:50 PM
Yea. What it is with those Saxons and their preoccupation with sex?
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 2:54 PM
I have to admit to zero interest in such debates. They just seem idiotic and pointless. There are so many interesting questions that will never come out in these sorts of exchanges, which amount to a kind of cage fighting for the pseudo-intellectual class.
Why does Hitchens believe what he believes? Faith. He has faith in science.
That is not to say that science is nothing more than an alternate form of faith. That isn't true at all. But Hitchens' belief in scientific proclamations IS a matter of faith. He hasn't the foggiest idea what science is, how it operates. His choice of science over religious dogma carries no more weight that one person's preference of the Rolling Stones over Lady Gaga.
Posted by: raven
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September 8, 2010 2:59 PM
It's not that bad. Xians have a great hope that help is coming real soon. The sky fairy is scheduled to show up 2,000 years late and kill 6.7 billion people and destroy the earth.
Death is something to look forward to when your life is meaningless and completely screwed up. Genocide solves all problems.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 3:04 PM
raven
As self-appointed spokesman for the atheist class, Hitchens isn't willing to wait thousands of years for a bloodbath. He's demanding one NOW against Iran, (having thoroughly enjoyed the destruction of Iraq and the murder of over a million people). That came courtesy of Hitchens' friend, the born-again psychopath George Bush!
In general, I believe atheists are saner, less bloodthirsty individuals who are less of a menace to society.
Hitchens appears determined to disprove this theory.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkqQXrl7yEsdEmCGIJY6e4vK85szmL2lf8
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September 8, 2010 3:13 PM
"...Why does Hitchens believe what he believes? Faith. He has faith in science. .."
rykart:
I'd like to read a direct quote where he used the word "faith" in regards to his views on science.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 3:22 PM
You misunderstand.
HE will never claim his convictions are merely a matter of faith. But they are. I see him as a very faith-based guy, ie someone who is totally immune to facts.
He argued that smoking and drinking don't adversely affect health.
He continues to this day to insist Iraq has hidden WMD.
He routinely passes off utter nonsense for accepted fact in a way that would give most televangelists and snake oil salesman a serious run for their money.
Indeed, very few people display greater disdain for the truth than Christopher Hitchens and just like the sleaziest religious goofball, Hitchens is never wrong about anything. he's infallible.
As I say, a terrible spokesman for atheism, (not to mention an utterly vile excuse for a human being).
Posted by: TrineBM
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September 8, 2010 3:28 PM
Having followed several people live and die with/of cancer (Mother, Father, Father-in-Law) and being with them all the way through this awful disease, I am most impressed that Hitchens is able to concentrate on a lot of other things than disease/him self.
That is inspirational. I'll probably die of cancer some time during the next 30 years. I'll be sure to remember Hitchens then.
Posted by: Richard Smith
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September 8, 2010 3:43 PM
Just wondering: Does Taunton smell worse on the inside than the outside?
Posted by: lumbercartel
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September 8, 2010 3:47 PM
Try raising a three-year-old on reasoned positions from general abstract principles. Ain't happening.
As a species we're wired to think in terms of metaphor and storytelling. Every culture on earth has used those tools to transmit accumulated knowledge across generations, and I strongly suspect that won't change in the future (although the stories may be cartoons, which is another matter entirely.)
It's not the use of myth, legend, and fable to transmit culture that's the problem. It's the combination of the ugly culture being transmitted and the fact that adults don't treat it with the same lack of reverence that they do tales of Paul Bunyan or Zorro.
Posted by: Brownian, Most Vicious & Petty of Pharyngulites
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September 8, 2010 3:49 PM
These are the nuanced arguments we're being accused of not paying enough attention to?
I don't bristle as much at some cornfed fuck from Podunk, USA making this argument, but Berlinksi knows better.
Since he does and lies anyway, he's a fucking pillar of shit as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by: greg.bourke0
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September 8, 2010 3:50 PM
"Berlinski responded that fascist and Communist governments including Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia held in common the proposition that "No power was greater than their own, and they acted on that." They were godless governments, despite some "infiltrations of religious thought," he said."
As opposed to such organisations as the Catholic church which are godless governments, despite some "infiltrations of religious thought" which act as though no power were greater than their own.
A subtle difference, I'm sure.
Posted by: Zeno
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September 8, 2010 4:46 PM
Berlinski: ick.
A terse but comprehensive description.
Posted by: SeeDubya
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September 8, 2010 5:04 PM
Or the Brits could now go to the trouble of spelling words the way they actually pronounce them which would almost completely undo our shameful plagiarism of their beloved town names and reclaim their uniqueness. Burmingum. Tada! Not a 100 percent gauranteed solution, though. Somehow many of us still manage to pronounce Westminster as Westminister.Posted by: yaburrow
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September 8, 2010 5:09 PM
Er... Godwin's Law - 'nuff said.
Posted by: Free Lunch
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September 8, 2010 5:25 PM
Try raising a three-year-old on reasoned positions from general abstract principles. Ain't happening.
But it appears that Berlinski is all about treating adults as three-year-olds.
Posted by: tristan.croll
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September 8, 2010 5:27 PM
A. Nuran @42: what the fuck have you been smoking?
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawkqQXrl7yEsdEmCGIJY6e4vK85szmL2lf8
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September 8, 2010 5:29 PM
rykart:
"HE will never claim his convictions are merely a matter of faith. But they are...."
Thanks for the reply rykart.
Posted by: frustum.myopenid.com
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September 8, 2010 5:31 PM
Why do people think that Hitler introduced antisemitism to Germany? As if it hadn't been there for centuries, and one of the most effective fanners of the flames was Luther himself.
I can imagine that people might have heard Hitler's rhetoric about purifying the race and such, but the ideas of "good" stock and selective breeding were known for ages before Darwin came along.
Posted by: A. Nuran
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September 8, 2010 6:03 PM
#61 Tristan Croll - I haven't been smoking anything. Hitchens has always been a hateful bigot. I've been reading his stuff for twenty years. Hatred of Swarthy Orientals and an unseemly eagerness to kill them has always been one of his hallmarks. He applauded imperial aggression and war crimes. There's never been a neo-con mass murder of Swarthy Mohammedans which he didn't support.
Posted by: badgersdaughter
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September 8, 2010 6:03 PM
A. Nuran has no better response to what he considers hatred than a vicious, hateful, bilious rant worthy of nothing better than a face slap, and if A. Nuran was in the room with me, that's exactly what this non-violent, sweet, kind, loving, doormat of a middle-aged loser would do, too.
Posted by: David Marjanović
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September 8, 2010 6:03 PM
Does he? Because he either has no inkling of stochastics, or he deliberately pretends so.
Posted by: tristan.croll
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September 8, 2010 6:13 PM
A. Nuran: Oh, sorry. I figured that to read what you seem to have read into the article you linked must require some sort of altered state.
Posted by: Zeno
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September 8, 2010 6:44 PM
I have no idea why some people are so taken with Berlinski's initial effort in pop math writing. His Tour is full of pretentious overwriting and goofy set pieces. The lecture in Prague episode is especially egregious.
(I've got to try harder to find a publisher for my own "popular" treatment of calculus.)
Posted by: A. Nuran
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September 8, 2010 6:47 PM
Tristan, I've been reading him in the New Republic, Salon, the NYT and more for twenty years. He's a bigot, pure and simple. He's been in favor of every proposed military action by anyone against any Muslim country anywhere for that entire time.
He defended the Iraq war even when he was caught out lying about what he knew about it.
He doesn't believe Muslims should have the same human rights as other Americans.
He's scum, pure and simple. He's dying. I wouldn't wish his end on anyone. But that doesn't alter the fact that he's lower than whale shit and delights in murder and torture.
Posted by: A. Nuran
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September 8, 2010 6:52 PM
Badger's Daughter, you might try to hit me. You would not succeed. But I would not hit you. I do not believe in hurting people except in self defense. You are not a threat, so I would not do it.
Compare and contrast to the specimen you are defending. For as long as I've been following his stuff he's advocated preemptive mass murder. He believes that all Muslims are the enemy no matter how inoffensive their actions.
If that's your model for "non-violent", "sweet" and "kind" you must be using a different dictionary than the one on the library shelf.
Posted by: MadScientist
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September 8, 2010 6:55 PM
Hitler's beliefs and justifications for murder all predate Darwin. It is bizarre how people claim that literature predating Darwin constitute Darwin's legacy. No doubt there would have been bigot literature written post-Darwin but I doubt any of it was original - they would have been simple plagiarism of previous bigot literature.
Posted by: John Morales
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September 8, 2010 7:00 PM
A. Nuran, your opinion is perfectly clear.
So, do you have anything else to contribute, or are you just gonna hang around dissing Hitchens?
--
PS your condescention towards Badger's Daughter is noted.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 7:35 PM
A Nuran has it exactly right.
Hitchens is a bloated dope with nothing of value to say.
As Noam Chomsky perceptively noted, it's pointless to even debate Hitchens because he can't possibly believe most of what he says.
Posted by: Hirnlego
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September 8, 2010 7:44 PM
I don't understand why they keep using that Darwin - nazism "link" when they themselves are great admirers, even bendovers for a deity if he was real would stand trial for crimes against humanity.
Posted by: microbry
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September 8, 2010 7:48 PM
I think this recent post on LOL god says it all:
http://lolgod.blogspot.com/2010/09/hitler-vs-atheism.html
Posted by: pdferguson
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September 8, 2010 7:54 PM
I suspect a lot of people would respond the way Taunton did, that if they found out Jesus didn't exist, it would ruin their lives.
This goes right to the heart of religious faith; people's god beliefs becomes so enmeshed with their egos, that the loss of one translates into the loss of the other. It is yet more evidence that god and ego are inextricably connected; gods truly do only exist between the ears.
This may help explain why religionists fight reason and facts so reflexively, because reality and rationalism are weapons that can kill the ego/god in their heads. Consequently, atheism is seen as an existential threat, a survival level instinct.
Understanding this connection between ego and gods may be the key to how theists view the world--and themselves. Finding ways to reduce the severity, or delay the onset of this phenomenon may be the only way for societies to break free from the dark yoke of religion.
Posted by: John Morales
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September 8, 2010 7:54 PM
rykart:
Your flamebait is noted.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 8:03 PM
pdferguson
Well said. But religions aren't the only sources of psychotic delusion humans are susceptible to, (as the case of Mr. Hitchens makes plain).
Many of my fellow Jews for example regard the tenets of Judaism as childish nonsense, yet are irrevocably wed to their "Jewishness" despite the fact that the word probably has no meaning any longer. Now, they are on a new kick to establish their specialness through genetics (in a creepy recapitulation of Nazi thinking).
To lose their Jewishness would be the same as a Christian losing Jesus, though these Jews pride themselves on being atheists. In short, religion holds no monopoly on unreasoned nonsense and aversion to facts.
Posted by: Grumpy1942
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September 8, 2010 8:05 PM
Posted by: A. Nuran
Hitchens, by contrast, is spending his last days spewing hatred and bile from the pages of Slate. In this article he keeps whipping up hatred and bigotry. Muslims are subhuman filth. They're all out to kill and enslave us. They don't deserve freedom or legal protection the way people like Christopher Hitchens do.
This is a slander. I read the piece. He doesn't say or even imply any of these things.
Only my thin layer of civilization prevents me from calling you a lying sack of shit.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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September 8, 2010 8:05 PM
The argumemtum ad Hitlerum has never made sense to me. Hitler (and Stalin and Mao*) believed 2+2=4, so does that mean arithmetic promotes genocide and other evils?
*Pol Pot is rather iffy in his acceptance of addition and other forms of higher mathematics.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 8:14 PM
Grumpy,
If you honestly believe Christopher Hitchens is NOT an anti-Arab racist of the most repellent variety, you have apparently not read much of his "work."
(For that, I envy you. )
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
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September 8, 2010 8:23 PM
rykart writes:
What the hell does Hitchens know about ANYTHING
He is insanely well-read, has travelled to places you'll never go, and has done a great deal more research on any of the subjects he's written about than you've apparently done about him. If your intent was to show that he's more knowledgeable than the average idiot, you've done a good job.
With respect to his recent demonization as a right-wing supporter - all I can say is that's a rather strange corner to paint a lifelong leftist and former trotskyite into. Like most reasoning people, Hitchens' politics are nuanced, not the simple pushbutton left/right nonsense you see on TV in the US. He's consistent, though, in his non-support for dictatorship and totalitarianism.
It's one thing to disagree with him, but why not keep it substantive? You may as well be screaming "he's a doody-head!"
Posted by: realinterrobang
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September 8, 2010 8:23 PM
You Yanks really need to get some names of your own.
Speaking as a Canadian from a city with an English placename, next time, send us some colonists with more imagination. Nobody to blame here but you folks, I'm afraid. :)
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
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September 8, 2010 8:33 PM
A Nuran writes:
He doesn't believe Muslims should have the same human rights as other Americans.
Needs citation. In fact, if you can find one place where Hitchens said or wrote anything to the effect of "all muslims X" I'll take my extensive collection of Hitchens' writings to the recycling station tomorrow. Hitchens has said that extremists who go around yelling "death to the US!" or encouraging violence (he often mentions the Fatwa against Rushdie in this context) should be considered to be declaring themselves an enemy. But that's not "all muslims" - unless you're about to make the horrible blunder of saying that all muslims are jihadists or support religion-inspired murder.
Not to rain any facts onto your little parade but Hitchens has also spoken quite eloquently against the crimes committed by christian extremists in the Balkans - against muslims. He's not anti-muslim. He's anti-dictator, anti-ethnic cleansing, etc. Unless you can point to some credible quote where he pigeonholes all muslims and recommends taking away their human rights, I'm going to assume you're knowingly lying. OK?
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 8:39 PM
Hitchens is "nuanced"?!?
Maybe compared with Charles Manson.
You imply one should hold him in high regard because at one time he was a leftist, prior to teaming up with George Bush (so much for Hitchens' pretended outrage about religious fundamentalists!)
Or at any rate, he pretended to be a leftist. It's hard to really know what the guy thinks, as these days, he makes zero sense.
Now he's off attacking the Imam of the notorious ground zero center, for his "sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza."
Does one really want to respond to the ravings of a drunk?
I will anyway.
Our own intelligence services repeatedly warned that there would be reprisals for America's murderous and obscene foreign policy. But Hitchens, along with his newfound love George Bush both insist it has nothing to do with America at all. Except that the nasty Arabs "hate our freedoms" and are eager for "72 virgins in heaven" and similarly infantile theories.
Hamas is the democratically elected government of Gaza. What the hell is he talking about?
Every word out of the guys mouth is a clumsy lie.
And he is NOT well read at ALL. His literary criticism is dated and hollow, (though at least here he wasn't encouraging mass murder like most of the rest of his abysmal writings).
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
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September 8, 2010 8:39 PM
rykart writes:
If you honestly believe Christopher Hitchens is NOT an anti-Arab racist of the most repellent variety, you have apparently not read much of his "work."
I've read a tremendous amount - so if you can quote a few places which support your claims he's a racist islamophobe, I'll be happy to review them and update my opinion.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself, Quel Dommage
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September 8, 2010 8:40 PM
Names like Chicago, Milwaukee, Miami, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and Washington.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 8:43 PM
He's "anti-ethnic cleansing?!"
Sure.
That's why he supports the Nazi vermin of Israel and calls the members of a humanitarian aid flotilla trying to bring supplies to suffering people "thugs," all but applauding their murder on the high seas by his beloved IDF goons.
C'mon.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
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September 8, 2010 8:48 PM
rykart writes:
Does one really want to respond to the ravings of a drunk?
I apparently did. I'm still waiting for quotes and citations.
"sinister belief that the United States was partially responsible for the assault on the World Trade Center and his refusal to take a position on the racist Hamas dictatorship in Gaza."
Can you show me what, there, is islamophobic or racist? Perhaps I'm blind but I don't see how attacking one cleric generalizes to "all muslims" does it?
Except that the nasty Arabs "hate our freedoms" and are eager for "72 virgins in heaven" and similarly infantile theories.
I've only ever heard Hitch referencing the virgins in heaven theory to make fun of it. Can you provide a quote?
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 8:51 PM
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
You're not being serious. Are you?
Hitchens has been a huge booster for every clown making a quick buck on the lucrative Islamophobe circuit, (while pocketing a pretty penny himself."
In several articles i have no interest in digging out of the garbage, he extends lavish praise to the "sorely oppressed" Hirsi Ali, who concocted a complete fraud about her abuse at the hands of islam before accepting a highly paid position with that great human rights institution the American Enterprise Institute--home office of like minded filth including Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen, John Bolton, etc
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
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September 8, 2010 8:51 PM
rykart writes:
That's why he supports the Nazi vermin of Israel and calls the members of a humanitarian aid flotilla trying to bring supplies to suffering people "thugs," all but applauding their murder on the high seas by his beloved IDF goons.
Where and when did he say that?
Posted by: Hirnlego
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September 8, 2010 8:53 PM
Hitchens long support for the Kurds should disprove this.
Posted by: AJ Milne OM
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September 8, 2010 8:59 PM
Nor, methinks, is he exactly obviously anti-Arab, either.
I mean, yes, he's had some opinions that stung folk on the left around that area, including about the war, and more recently about the flotilla. But he also wrote Blaming the Victims with Said...
... and chastises Israel regularly (and as recently as a few months ago) for the occupation of Palestine...
As to all this alleged 'friendship' with Dubya, it'd be fair to call this rather nuanced, too. He's been extremely critical of plenty of what Shrubco did, including Abu Ghraib and the use of torture.
I think Hitchens is wrong about a few things, and that includes the war, at the very least. But his record is hardly so cut-and-dried that I think you can assume he's just an 'anti-Arab' bigot from them. Comes off as a bit too convenient, from where I'm standing. Like hell, he disagrees with me on policy, sez stuff I don't like, must be a bigot...
I need a bit more than that, thanks. Hysterical character assassins don't quite fit the bill.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE
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September 8, 2010 8:59 PM
rykart writes:
In several articles i have no interest in digging out of the garbage, he extends lavish praise to the "sorely oppressed" Hirsi Ali
How is supporting Hirsi Ali islamophobic or racist?
I can understand why you 'don't feel like digging the articles out of the garbage' -- because you know as well as I do that they don't exist and you're making things up.
Cite islamophobic racism by Hitchens or admit you're just a blowhard and a liar. I don't care if someone disagrees with another person - whether they're convinced or agree or not - but putting words in their mouth when they're not there to defend themselves isn't cricket.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 9:06 PM
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawmVT1LBhwmO9ej9LNg7a5e9d-AVJ8ezfmE | September 8, 2010 8:59 PM
I will admit that YOU are a blowhard and a liar.
Here's your hero spreading Bush-worthy vomit about the humanitarian aid flotilla.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5GWpyFDTmk
Had anyone other than Arabs and their supporters been the victims of this atrocity, you think Hitchens would demonize these victims with idiotic slander and smugly refer to this abomination as "a microevent." ?
No--and I'm sure cheerleading for the unrestricted massacre of Iraqis, and their confinement in torture chambers doesn't contain a hint of racism either. nor hitchens insistence we must launch a NEW massacre against Iran, on behalf of his revered ethnic cleansers, the israelis.
What other crap are you selling?
Posted by: cartman86
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September 8, 2010 9:08 PM
@A. Nuran
The article you linked shows in no way that Hitchens is a bigot. He goes through most of the article saying that religious freedom isn't total in this country, and it shouldn't be. For example you can't not give your kid medicine because your religion tells you. You can't marry multiple people because your religion says so, and so he warns that if Muslims try and declare such privileges we must not allow it. Seems reasonable to me.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 9:16 PM
Very good take down of Hitchens, the insufferable fraud.
http://www.counterpunch.org/finkelstein09102003.html
Finkelstein takes the time to actually go through a few pages of one of Hitchens' "books" where he says one thing on one page and the precise opposite on the next. Again. And again. And again.
People hold this clod up as a master of debate, but if you actually read him it's plain he hasn't the foggiest what the fuck he's talking about.
Posted by: Robster
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September 8, 2010 9:46 PM
Hey, what is it about Christopher Hitchens that engenders such vitriolic hatred of the man, on a blog where respect for a talented and outspoken athiest would have been expected? I love his books, I love his total disrespect for religion, believers and the assorted commercial purveyors of religious nonsense. He's brave, I mean he's not hard to find, he communicates his views in plain but beautiful language, is humorous, look at him doing interviews with distinguished journalists on TV with a whisky and cigarette in hand. OK many may not share all of what Hitchens states, but in terms of promoting an athiest view point, there are few to match. Also, has Hitchens' outlook worsened? I hadn't heard that was officially diagnosed as "dying". Ta
Posted by: DLC
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September 8, 2010 9:56 PM
Trolls @ various: Ignored, not worth bothering over.
Robster @98: if I read it right, Hitchens' father died of the same illness, which is fairly serious and does not have a positive long term outlook.
PZ Myers@ OP: Yes, I agree, Hitch is going out with class. I hope I'm equally as urbane about it.
Posted by: DLC
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September 8, 2010 9:59 PM
(oh, I just realized:no, I am not due to expire any time soon. Like our Host, I have a few medical issues which are being handled, but I am not dying any quicker than anyone else )
Posted by: Zebra
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September 8, 2010 10:10 PM
Robster @98: Hitchens has esophageal cancer metastatic to lung. Haven't seen details beyond that, nor which chemotherapy regimen he's getting, but it doesn't matter. The 5 year survival rate for metastatic esophageal cancer, with or without treatment, is less than 5%.
Posted by: echidna
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September 8, 2010 10:37 PM
Not how I interpreted what he said. Dismissing your editorial "smug" (do English accents sound smug to you?), he was clear that the event was one of many, and needed to be seen in context. He then went on to discuss the context.
Rykart, I don't agree with Hitch politically, but I abhor your "point and misconstrue" tactics.
Posted by: tauarmy
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September 8, 2010 10:58 PM
Yea, Alabama.
I did get to see this and it will be on C-SPAN as well.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 10:58 PM
echidna
..pretty tough to "misconstrue" what Hitchens said about the brave souls who put their lives on the line to bring desperately needed humanitarian aid to a besieged population. He associates them with terrorists before going on to preposterously declare that "the world will never be safe for Jews" --something that certainly came as a shock to THIS Jew, as well as my family and friends, none of whom have felt persecuted or threatened in the least. The guy is plainly out of his fucking mind.
And by the way, Hitchens is far more contemptuous of facts than the religious nutcases he is so fond of taking childish pot shots at.
Iraq was allied with al qaida!! (evidence: zero).
Iraq hid its WMD (evidence: zero)
Iran plans to wipe out the Jews (too absurd to even entertain)
Clinton is a rapist! (Evidence: zero)
There's no such thing as legitimate animosity toward America's Mid east policy--only Islamo-fascism (a childish lie)
Clinton committed rape (evidence: zero)
All in all, a thoroughly repulsive individual. That said, I'm glad he's receiving the best care for his illness--something denied to the Iraqis whose hospitals we bombed into rubble on the humanitarian advice of geniuses like Hitchens.
Posted by: rykart
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September 8, 2010 11:27 PM
DLC
I suppose you're right, if by "going out with class" you mean using the last of your energies to blather drunken appeals to genocide, while a career criminal and parasite like Jeffrey Goldberg looks on in rapturous delight:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/08/hitchens-off-the-wall-on-iran-and-israel/
Posted by: GayHedBri
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September 9, 2010 12:57 AM
Hitler had renounced his Catholicism at such a young age, 10, I believe.
Check out his history. Interesting symbollism behind the SS. He and several of his men practiced in the occult. At this time of his life, he had no relationship to Catholocism.
His deep immersion into the new-agey occultism ruled his life and his Reich more and more over time.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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September 9, 2010 1:31 AM
Hirsi Ali, who concocted a complete fraud about her abuse at the hands of islam ... blah blah blahitty blah blat etc
fucking trolls.
don't you have your own blog to bleat on?
Posted by: Wowbagger, Man-Hating Man of Pharyngula
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September 9, 2010 1:51 AM
GHB wrote:
Then why didn't the Catholic church oppose him during his rise to power? Or during his reign of terror? They are, after all, a powerful force in Germany; where does the current Pope hail (or heil, ha ha) from again?
Posted by: BlueIndependent
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September 9, 2010 2:20 AM
OK rykart, I have no idea where you got your views of Hitchens, but you're wrong on quite a number of things you've said about him here.
He absolutely is against Hamas. Hamas may be democratically elected, but it doesn't change who they are, namely the ones inciting the conflict from the Palestinian side. The Palestinians would be better off supporting Fatah. But leaving all that aside, he supports a two-state solution in that conflict, and has many times railed against the hardline conservatives in Israel inflaming the process.
And how the hell did you miss his support for the Kurds, who are trying to set up a secular government (however poorly they are doing so)? That is one of the top 3 reasons he supported the IW. The others were unseating Saddam for genocidal acts (against the Kurds), and for harboring terrorists. Now, Iraq is a very sticky issue, and I did not support us going in there again, certainly not with 9/11 as a pretext and not on the absent "evidence" for WMDs. But if anyone is flatly honest about his motives for supporting that war, it's Hitchens. He did not hang his hat stupidly on WMDs, nor did he support our grabbing of the oil fields first. He also, for example, doesn't at all dismiss Bush's absurd prosecution of the conflict or the blissful failures. I've seen video of him saying so in front of interviewers and audiences.
He's fessed up to his former-but-now-rescinded support of Robert Mugabe in Africa. He's been to Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, etc. He's openly defaced the symbols of fascists in some of those countries and lived to tell about it.
I could go on, but I don't think I need to. Your first post at 31 reveals you to be incapable of reading comprehension. He said the cancer was not a sentient thing trying to kill him with intent, only a mindless alien that wasn't even a parasite because it "lives" to die (to paraphrase). What it that difficult to understand what he was saying?
Posted by: circleh
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September 9, 2010 3:35 AM
Sounds like his life already has no value if the debunking of a religious ideal ruins it. Most people should value their lives much more.Posted by: maureen.brian#b5c92
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September 9, 2010 3:47 AM
@ 87
Er, Hmm. I'm afraid that Washington won't do!
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/224165
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_Tyne_and_Wear
Posted by: chaseacross
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September 9, 2010 4:43 AM
"It's absolutely nuts that people still play this game of blaming Darwin for the Nazis; there's just no historical reason to do so."
It isn't nuts at all. The people who make this argument are appealing neither to reason nor history, but to pure rhetorical chicanery. The only people who would buy this argument are entrenched believers. It's nonsense believed only by the foolish in the service of the manipulative.
Posted by: Peter Ashby
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September 9, 2010 6:21 AM
Ah yes, immigrants and place names. There is an elevated geographical feature here in Scotland called in essence hill hill hill but it is done in iir Pictish, Norse and Scots Gaelic.
It is also not just a feature of America*, NZ and Australia have their share of them too, it's just that you don't hear about Cambridge NZ, or Perth Aus as much Birmingham AL.
*The real difference is that in the US you often have one per state, not just one per country.
It is also a good demonstration of how little colonial immigrants ignored or did not bother to ask the locals what the place was called.
Posted by: Nathan McCurley
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September 9, 2010 10:21 AM
I was lucky enough to attend the debate.
It was recorded for CSPAN and apparently there were people from 60 Minutes there to interview Hitchens as well.
Posted by: Gregory Greenwood
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September 9, 2010 11:20 AM
rykart;
Why do you bear such hatred toward Christopher Hitchin's?
I understand that you dislike his posture on the Iraq war and his attitude toward Islam, but you are wontonly misconstruing his statements and seeking to demonize a very sick man.
To be honest, I am becoming somewhat suspicious of your true motives for such bitter vitriol.
Why are you so invested in seeking, not merely to argue against some of his positions, but to discredit him altogether?
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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September 9, 2010 11:50 AM
Folks who live in the Alabama one say something like 'Buhminhaim'
Posted by: Magical Atheist
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September 9, 2010 12:24 PM
PZ said "Why not settle on that mass murdering tyrant, Stalin, instead? He was no friend of Darwin, either, but at least he was openly atheist, so they'd at least have a tiny pinch of logic (but not much of one) in correlating atheism and tyranny"
Stalin was openly atheist? To me it there seems there is just as much evidence for Stalin being an atheist as there is for him being a deist or an agnostic.
Posted by: Akira MacKenzie
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September 9, 2010 2:37 PM
Tell me rykart and A. Nuran; are you here to piss on Hitchens because you don't agree with his views on the Middle East or because, by all accounts, he handed Berlinski his ass.
Posted by: Akira MacKenzie
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September 9, 2010 2:40 PM
Whoops! Punctuation failure! That out last post ought to have ended with a question mark rather than a period.
Forgive my error.
Posted by: rykart
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September 10, 2010 12:06 PM
Here's what Hitchens said:
"When I described the tumor in my esophagus as a "blind, emotionless alien," I suppose that even I couldn't help awarding it some of the qualities of a living thing. This at least I know to be a mistake: an instance of the "pathetic fallacy" (angry cloud, proud mountain, presumptuous little Beaujolais) by which we ascribe animate qualities to inanimate phenomena. To exist, a cancer needs a living organism, but it cannot ever become a living organism. Its whole malice--there I go again--lies in the fact that the "best" it can do is to die with its host. Either that or its host will find the measures with which to extirpate and outlive it."
If there were a Nobel Prize for form over content, surely this piece of idiocy would be a strong contender, as would many other ludicrous statements by Hitchens.
He would have you believe that he's a bitter adversary of Jerry Fallwell, but in fact, the two are kindred spirits. Both are fat, supercilious, self-satisfied, narcissistic thugs whose primary interest is shoving money down their pants. Most importantly, both are (or in Fallwell's case, were) driven entirely by ideology. When facts don't fit the ideology, ignore them, distort them out of recognition or simply invent new "facts" out of whole cloth.
As to Hamas, he calls them a dictatorship, just as he labels the democratically elected Hugo Chavez " a dictator." That's called lying, plain and simple.
While the vermin of Israel are busy with their Nazi-inspired campaign of ethnic cleansing, Hitchens has the audacity to label Hamas "racist."
Evidence? As usual: zero.
Posted by: rykart
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September 10, 2010 12:29 PM
P.S.
If you want to really appreciate Hitchens' talent for packing more absolute bullshit per column inch into his silly tracts than any other practitioner in the field, you could do worse than to examine this item of buffoonery:
http://www.slate.com/id/2162157/
Like Fallwell, Hitchens is never wrong.
WMD? 'I'm right!' (never mind that even his most loathsome neo-con pals have by now rejected this pretense for a war of aggression).
Weren't the weapons inspectors in the most recent round given utterly unfettered access to every site in Iraq? Didn't we have spy plains in the air in addition to inspectors on the ground, photographing every sand grain in the country, 24/7
No no no. Saddam was continuing to block the inspections!
That's pure Hitchens, Just invent utter bullshit and keep harping on it in one drunken monologue after another. Who knows, maybe someone will be dumb enough to believe him.
When asked about his lifestyle choices--same deal 'I'm always right and I'm never wrong.' The guy actually said that he wouldn't change a thing, even though he's pretty sure the smoking and drinking led to his terminal cancer. We ought to let that sink in. Knowing that what you're doing is going to cause you to forfeit 30-40 years of travel, writing, speaking, being a father to your kids and a husband to your wife, and you'd do it ANYWAY?! He's either lying (again) or he's an imbecile.
Posted by: Rorschach
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September 10, 2010 12:36 PM
rykart the fucker,
It's called character, and standing by your life decisions.You don't have it, fucker.Now go away.
Posted by: rykart
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September 10, 2010 12:40 PM
How about this little gem from our hero:
"...any call to indict the United States for torture is...a lame and diseased attempt to arrive at a moral equivalence between those who defend civilization and those who exploit its freedoms to hollow it out, and ultimately to bring it down. I myself do not trust anybody who does not clearly understand this viewpoint."
Posted by: rykart
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September 10, 2010 12:55 PM
Hi Rorschach,
Are you called that because your posts resemble formless ink blots?
Posted by: Rorschach
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September 10, 2010 12:55 PM
rykart the moron,
we can read mate, if you link to Hitchens' quotes calling them a gem while meaning the opposite how about actually explaining your position ? Oh, let me guess, you're just a hot air balloon who has fuck all to say.Go away, asshole, ffs.
Posted by: JackC
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September 10, 2010 4:10 PM
Gotta say, rykart: although I am no fan of Hitchens, every single thing you have managed to point to as absolute bug-fuckery from him points to a sad lack of comprehension on your part. Particularly the bit about cancer.
Are you honestly saying that cancer is a separate being, has a mental state, feelings, and goals all it's own?
Cancer is cells growing out of control. It has no goal. It has no feelings. It is not proper to anthropomorphise it, but it is human habit to do so.
Or perhaps you are familiar with cancer that has become sentient? Perhaps intimately familiar?
JC
Posted by: rykart
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September 10, 2010 4:47 PM
JackC writes:
"Are you honestly saying that cancer is a separate being, has a mental state, feelings, and goals all it's own?"
Nope. That was the anthropomorphic implication of Hitchens' original characterization of his cancer.
He then amended that to saying that not only is cancer NOT "sentient" (something already obvious to a half wit) but that cancer was QUOTE "inanimate" and no more "alive" than "an angry cloud, proud mountain, presumptuous little Beaujolais"
Cancer of course, despite Hitchens' claim, does NOT belong in the class of inanimate objects he specifies but is entirely, undeniably, virulently ALIVE.
As to Hitchens' most loathsome lies--those regarding Iraq--so many people have torn him to shreds, it seems redundant to do it all over again.
This one's a pretty decent evisceration:
http://www.counterpunch.org/gorman10092005.html
..though as Chomsky wisely noted, Hitchens crap is so absurd that is highly doubtful Hitchens believes a word of it himself.
Posted by: rykart
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September 10, 2010 4:51 PM
Rorschach writes:
"It's called character, and standing by your life decisions."
If you'd like to emulate Hitchens' marvelous display of "character" by smoking and drinking your way to an early grave too, I'd be the last one to interfere!
Posted by: JackC
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September 10, 2010 5:41 PM
A better example of the sad lack of reading comprehension I would be hard pressed to find.
I suggest you try to clear your mind of hatred, go back and read just that one paragraph again, and come back and make the statement again that Hitchens has no idea what he is talking about.
You are otherwise being either intentionally incendiary or unbelievably naive. Or both - they are, after all, not mutually exclusive.
JC
Posted by: rykart
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September 10, 2010 5:55 PM
Hi JC
I'm sorry you are having difficulty with this. Let me lay it out again as plainly as possible.
First, in an earlier piece, Hitchens refers to his cancer as " a blind, emotionless alien." ..obviously anthropomorphizing it.
In a subsequent article, he says that isn;t really accurate. Cancer is not sentient.
So far so good.
He then plainly and unmistakably goes on to say that cancer in "inanimate." He gives 3 examples of inanimate objects, that humans wrongly ascribe living traits to--clouds, mountains and boujolais. Those are indeed inanimate objects but cancer most certainly is NOT inanimate.
There can be absolutely no doubt about Hitchens being completely, ludicrously wrong, as he says the same mistaken thing, repeatedly:
"To exist, a cancer needs a living organism, BUT IT CANNNOT EVER BECOME A LIVING ORGANISM."
I'd be quite curious to know how you come to thinking that that sentence is not obviously, transparently wrong. It's nonsense and any biologist will tell you so.
Again--such nonsense hasn't to my knowledge done any damage apart from that inflicted on Hitchens' already mangled reputation. That's more than we can say about so many of his other wrong-headed blathering, which have gotten a lot of people killed.
Posted by: JackC
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September 10, 2010 6:49 PM
rykart, your animosity is blinding you. I don't care for Hitchens, but I have no desire to read into anything he writes what is not there. It appears you do.
Have fun with that.
So - let me ask you this - do you equate cancer cells with a parasitic LIVING ORGANISM such as a tapeworm? Are they perhaps on par with Escherichia coli? What about the lowly virus? Is cancer on par, lower or higher form of "life" than any of these?
Does cancer meet any definition of "living organism" that you can find? Does blood, or any component thereof?
I will agree that the descriptions Hitchens used to clarify his point are probably a bit wide of the mark - though good for his purpose. Perhaps, if he had wished, he could have said an "angry hangnail" or a "wild hair" or perhaps more poetically, a "tortured tree". All of these things - arguably - fit what you appear to think of as "living" but are really no more or less correct than his analogies. They are also less clear than the examples he did use, which I can certainly understand, being a native speaker of English.
Perhaps you are not?
JC
Posted by: rykart
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September 13, 2010 9:05 AM
JC
Many thanks for supplying this simple discussion with an army of straw men,
If Hitchens were talking about a virus, he would indeed be on stronger ground in denying they are a living organism. Some think they are, some don't.
But a cancer cell? No way. Sorry, that won't wash and to answer your other question..yes. Cancer cells certainly DO meet all the requirements of living organisms..growth, development, reproduction, control of homeostasis. They are NOT like ecoli, which are prokaryotic cells.
In short, it's pointless to continue this discussion. I can only wish you and Christopher Hitchens a stunning career in the life sciences, having hit upon a discovery apparently missed by the world's oncologists: cancer isn't living!
Posted by: JackC
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September 13, 2010 10:57 AM
Rykart - those who believe a virus to be a living organism are those without an understanding of what criteria a living organism must meet to be considered living. Let me be clear here - the cell that becomes cancerous IS a living cell. Cancer itself is a mutation to that cell's DNA. Cancer itself is NOT a living entity - it is a result.
The key is this - Cancer is not a separate "thing" - it is a normal cell that has lost the ability to regulate growth. It is a disease. It is an otherwise normal cell in uncontrolled growth. You would probably abhor this description of the details, as it likens cells to Lego Blocks - certainly the similarity to Hitchens likening the anthropormirphism of cancer to things such as clouds and other inanimate objects must sicken you.
What YOU believe cancer to be is your own issue. I suggest you contact an oncologist and ask them what they think. You could also start here.
Cancer does not reproduce - it metastasizes - very different. Does a stalactite "reproduce" when the material forming it drops to a cave floor and builds a stalagmite as well? Do either of these "want" to meet and form a column? Of course they do not, but it is essentially the same method cancerous cells propagate - there is no desire, no seeking out, no control - there is breaking off and connection elsewhere.
Cancer is not what you believe it is. Your persistence in this misunderstanding indicates that your (mis)understanding of Hitchens is also coloured by that which you believe to be true, rather than what actually is presented. Hitchens made reasonably analogies and only your hatred of him prevents you from understanding this.
Now let's examine Escherichia coli.
When you say that cancer and E. coli are unlike, you are correct, but I think for the wrong reason. Prokaryotic organisms (which DO meet all the criteria for living organisms) are, in fact, quite different from cancer cells - in one important respect - they are, in fact, life forms and cancer is not. Cancer is a disease of a living cell, it is not a life form in and of itself. It is not an external invader, a parasite, any sort of karyotic cell - it is a disease. A result.
Pointless to continue? Perhaps - as it appears that you are unwilling to examine how badly you are misconstruing what you read from Hitchens, as such examination may illustrate to you, in glaring detail, the blindness you yourself have created.
JC
Posted by: rykart
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September 13, 2010 11:23 AM
"Cancer does not reproduce - it metastasizes - very different. "
Another JC-Hitchens medical milestone!!!
It would seem that the herculean efforts of the scientific community to find ways to arrest the prolific reproduction of cancer cells are completely misguided, because cancer doesn't reproduce. It only metastasizes!
That's the last dime i ever give to those charlatans at the American Cancer Society!
Posted by: JackC
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September 13, 2010 12:41 PM
It really does not bother me whatsoever that you choose to lump me together with Hitchens - I certainly am not offended by it at all. I wish I could even justify being so honoured.
You apparently are not aware that metastasis and cell reproduction are two very different things. Perhaps you should look up the Greek root.
However, I think that you perhaps feel that your knowledge on this subject requires no reference, that you have an absolute understanding of what you know to be the truth. As such, reference to any further information is superfluous and a waste of time.
You still have not responded whether English is your primary language. I can only infer that you feel that is unnecessary information.
JC
Posted by: rykart
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September 14, 2010 1:16 AM
"Cancer does not reproduce - it metastasizes - very different. "
No No. Please DO continue your fascinating lecture on the life sciences. I never realized that cancer cells do not divide, like other cells.
And please accept my comparison of you and Hitchens. He ALSO tends to become increasingly insistent, the more totally full of shit he is!
By the way, are you fond of scotch?
Posted by: Ichthyic
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September 14, 2010 1:34 AM
I never realized that cancer cells do not divide, like other cells.
you're good at propping up strawmen, it seems.
little else.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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September 14, 2010 1:37 AM
..obviously anthropomorphizing it.
that's often what writers do.
it's called artistic license.
good thing Hitch isn't a biology professor, eh?
fuck off.
Posted by: JackC
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September 14, 2010 11:20 AM
This is the VERY FIRST time you have actually said cancer CELLS - and not cancer, as if cancer itself was a separate thing.
Perhaps you are teachable after all, though obstinate and prone to misdirection. Ah well - we still may try.
Cancer CELLS - those cells that are cancerous, which is a condition, not a life form - most certainly do divide. This is, of course, what cancer IS - out of control division of otherwise normal cells which have experienced damage to the normal DNA to the extent that division is out of control and detrimental in many cases, useless in all cases.
You have also moved now from saying that they "reproduce" to they divide. The latter is certainly true. The matter of control is the issue and with a cancerous cell, that control is lost.
Cancer itself is not alive - but the cells thus affected are. As such, Hitchens' analogies do remain valid, regardless of your overly sensitive feelings. Cancer is not an entity. It has no goal. It has no life of itself. It is a disease of a cell - of many cells.
And yes, I am generally fond of scotch, though not as educated in the wide range as I would perhaps like to be. You still have not answered whether you are a native English speaker. I presume that you are not and are not therefore well versed in the nuances of English speech relating specifically to analogy, specifically using simile and metaphor. You may also not be sufficiently knowledgeable in the language to recognise a valid point when it is being made. You certainly have shown that in this exchange.
If so, you can be forgiven your inability to understand valid comparisons made in simile and metaphor. It would better serve you to develop a small understanding that there are many who are native to the language who more adequately understand what is being said than you, however.
Perhaps when you start your post-primary education, you will come across enough information to be well served in this regard.
JC
Posted by: rykart
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September 14, 2010 1:43 PM
I appreciate the English lesson from an imbecile who agrees with Hitchens that cancer is "inanimate" and belongs in the same class of objects as mountains and clouds.
I also appreciate the biology lecture from an imbecile who believes that cell division and cell reproduction are not the same thing.
Naturally, you are free to continue embarrassing yourself to your heart's content, though I'm afraid I won't be hanging around to observe the sorry spectacle.
Posted by: JackC
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September 14, 2010 2:46 PM
Won't be hanging around, rykart? Hmm - let me look - surely I have heard that before! I think you are probably more interested in "getting the last word" in than you are anything approaching accuracy, honesty or - dare I say it? - actual thought.
So - we can deduce from this that:
A: English is not your first language. Nothing unreasonable there, other than your meager attempts to take on those who understand it far, far better than you.
B: You have minimal education - perhaps have not yet started a secondary level. We can only hope that further study will improve your outlook and that you will come to realise that even those for whom you hold animosity can offer an occasional acorn. Ah, but you would probably dislike my mixing some metaphorical relationship there as well.
C: Your grasp of reality is tenuous at best. Not sure what we can do there. That part is generally up to you.
D: Your idea of a reasonable discussion is insult (rather poor, I have to say) to your correspondent, in attempt (I presume) to illicit response in kind. Hey - good luck with that!
As for me, well I will just continue to pick up your colourful commentary, glance at it momentarily and toss it aside with a small smile. I don't insult easily so you really will have to try much harder than you have so far. The first thing you would have to do, if I could offer a small hint, is to present any evidence that supports your side. Vitriol alone is completely insufficient. There truly must be some information brought to bear. Perhaps if you bolstered your supposed facts with references from, oh, I don't know - Cancer journals perhaps? - they might be better received.
I am a pretty big target after all - shouldn't be all THAT hard to hit.
And besides, the English lessons are free. Perhaps we could discuss Scotch?
Or are you as equally informed in that arena as you are in both English metaphor and cancer?
JC
Posted by: Nev
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September 15, 2010 1:21 PM
'Gotta say, rykart: although I am no fan of Hitchens'
'I don't care for Hitchens'
'It really does not bother me whatsoever that you choose to lump me together with Hitchens - I certainly am not offended by it at all. I wish I could even justify being so honoured.'
You sound just like Hitchens, JackC. A fraud.
Posted by: JackC
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September 15, 2010 2:36 PM
Hey there Nev - another country heard from?
Fraud? Could be. Could be. After all, it is kind of hard to tell across these miles of network connections.
Of course, I don't care at all what you think. You would have to PROVE any fraud. Have fun with that.
Would that it were possible for me to sound like Hitchens. Thanks for that equation. How or why you would come to that conclusion quite escapes me however. It would seem that much like your good friend (sock puppet perhaps?) rykart, you choose to simply attack with no reason, rather than reason your attack.
Surely your primary school can come up with someone a bit more capable? I will be here a while longer. Take your time.
JC
Posted by: Nev
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September 15, 2010 5:20 PM
Maybe it went over your head. It's quite obvious you're a shill. Yes, of course you don't care for Hitchens.
Posted by: amphiox
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September 15, 2010 6:00 PM
Perhaps a bit pedantic here, but most cancer cells, point of fact, do not and indeed can not divide. In the majority of tumor types, at any given time, only a small fraction of the cancer cells are capable of division. The rest are terminally differentiated, and do not divide. A tumor is actually an aberrant organ, and like a normal organ, has a heirarchy of differentiated cells doing various differentiated activities. And indeed, in many tumors, the most common cell types are actually normal (ie non-mutated) cells that migrate into the tumor and are often induced by the tumor environment to assume abnormal phenotypes.
The Tasmanian Devil face-eating cancer seems to be well on its way to becoming an exception, morphing from cancer to infectious disease. . . .
And arguably, HeLa cells have changed from human cancer to independent amoeboid protozoan specializing in living in laboratory cell culture environments.
As for "needing a living organism", so do many parasites. There's no argument as to whether critters like liver flukes are alive, though.
Posted by: JackC
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September 15, 2010 7:52 PM
Hi Nev. No, in order to have gone over my head, it would have required altitude. You may learn about that later in school. Has a bit to do with lift being greater than the pull of gravity and all that.
I am afraid that so far, your comments have been all weight and no lift. I think I did see it wriggle by underfoot though.
amphiox - thanks for that. Good data is always welcome. Save perhaps by Nev and friend/sock-puppet rykart. I think perhaps they share adjacent desks in grade school.
Tasmanian Devil Facial Cancer is some mean stuff. Interestingly, it is described as "non-viral" but it's spread is described as "virulent" - which should cause rykart and Nev to clutch pearls and wail in anguish as one could not possibly imply the other. Sorry guys, I just read and report.
It does look like some headway may be made against the disease very recently though and there may be time yet to save the little buggers. They are quite cute, when they aren't wailing and gnashing. Sort of like rykart, really.
Of course, parasites require a host at some point in their life. There is no question that a parasite is in fact a separate, living organism. The question rykart, Nev and their classmates struggle with is this: Is cancer itself (not the cell which has acquired the cancerous condition, mind you, but the cancer itself), alive? They have indicated unequivocally yes.
Liver flukes, tapeworms and the like most certainly suffer no such questioning. They also can be said to have an "intent" to remain alive and propagate, all the other hallmarks of Life. The position taken here is that cancer itself has no such characteristic.
Cancer happens. It is a (sometimes deadly) modification (mutation) of otherwise normal genes. That is all.
In this degree, what Hitchens has said, quoted above by rykart, is correct. It is only the unrequited hatred of Hitchens born by these folks that prevents them from being able to state that ANYTHING that Hitchens says is correct. Well, that and their sad, though understandable, lack of understanding of how metaphor is used in the English language.
It's kind of sad really, to see two such youngsters growing up in a part of the world where the ability to at least understand one's enemy would be valuable, appear have no such compunction.
JC
Posted by: Nev
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September 16, 2010 2:37 PM
Strange how someone who doesn't 'care for Hitchens' is so defensive of him and writes in the same manner.i.e. verbal masturbation and condescension.
Get over your paranoia. I don't know who rykart is apart from knowing he's also someone who has the brains to see through Hitchens bullshit and the narcissistic cunt that he is.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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September 16, 2010 2:46 PM
I dearly hope that someone calls me a "narcissistic cunt" when I'm incapacitated or dead. It will make me so proud.
Posted by: JackC
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September 18, 2010 7:17 PM
Hear, hear! Except for bit about being dead and all that is.
Nev, here's the thing. It is possible to not like a person, and yet still admire their ability to make a point, express themselves clearly and live life as they see fit.
Well - let me rephrase that - *I* can, and others here as well (I believe I am not entirely out of line by saying our host here in these environs has not spoken well of Hitchens on occasion as well - however he too is able to recognise greatness that may not entirely square with our own position in some respects.
That you and your soul-mate and school chum rykart cannot follow this says much more of you than anything anyone here could say of you, most certainly me in any event.
It is the essence of maturity to understand, and perhaps occasionally agree with, those you dislike. Perhaps one day, if you are lucky and study hard, you will begin to understand. Continue your studies and hopefully, once you reach University (assuming you have not martyred yourself or anything by then - children are just SO impressionable these days), you may come to understand what we mean.
JC
Posted by: Nev
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September 20, 2010 10:49 AM
More verbal masturbation and condescension. The classic traits of NPD. You should ghostwrite for Hitchens. Do you masturbate while looking in the mirror, perchance?
Posted by: JackC
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September 20, 2010 11:23 AM
Ha! That's amusing! Lacking any sufficiently nuanced response, Nev resorts to a pallid (must I say flaccid?) response, attempting to insult. What we would refer to here in the States as a 5th-grade education manifests itself once again. I may be being overly generous at that.
Ah well. Here you give these kids a nice, wide target and all they can do is throw spitballs. Dry ones at that. Such a sorry state of middle-eastern education - I thought we reserved that right exclusively for the states, but I suppose your CofO is perhaps one of the lesser ones. So sorry to hear that, but it does go a long way in explanation.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder at that! Did you just happen to run into that and decide it would be an interesting thing to throw at me? It certainly went rolling by my feet at a very low rate. I would have thought you would have better aim than that, if you get my drift.
One has to wonder why a youngster such as you would imagine that Hitchens would actually need a ghost writer though. It certainly is flattering that you would believe that I can write as well as he - and I can only wish that I could earn the kind of income he must in that manner. I think he gets along quite nicely without the need for a hidden author, though - don't you?
It is also flattering that you feel I am as offensive to you as Hitchens. I could barely have hoped for more. Of course, it would mean so much more if this attempt at vitriol came from an adult, but hey - we all have to start somewhere, right?
I truly am sorry that I cannot return the favour though. I really cannot think of anything that you are actually good at. Your ability to reference is non-existent, your rhetoric weak and your ability to insult, though it presently takes high ground compared to your mentality, barely meets minimal standards.
In short, it is actually quite difficult to distinctly separate you and your mate rykart from the very rationale you use to attack Hitchens.
Do please try harder. Perhaps you can go hang out with some of the older boys in the more advanced levels? They may be able to help you out with a thing or to - though you may want to be certain they are Catholic first. It could increase your chance of getting a really good "fundamental" education.
JC
Posted by: Nev
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September 21, 2010 7:17 AM
...and more verbal masturbation. Keep going. I enjoy it when idiots dig even deeper.
Oh bugger...I shouldn't have said 'idiots'. I should have wanked off some flowery prose instead and made myself feel important.
Posted by: JackC
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September 21, 2010 1:07 PM
Skewered by Nev's rapier wit! Are you perhaps studying for a stand-up routine? If so, keep it up. A few more years and perhaps by the time you graduate, you may learn what you are doing wrong.
I just have to believe you are just overcome with the concept of masturbation. Perhaps it is new to you? Buggery however you appear to be rather familiar with.
JC
Posted by: JackC
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September 28, 2010 9:09 PM
Bah. Slackards.
JC