Hitchens: Christianity is a fraud if it’s not literally true

[Darth Rotor]

Hitchens is, once again, eloquent and correct. If Jesus did not raise from the dead then Christians have been ripped off and had the piss taken for centuries.

Another way of saying what Hitchen's is getting at: without Christ's divine nature, you are back to something similar to Confucius: a philosophical framework. Hitchen has no time for Christ's divine nature.

 

[paximperium]

Another way of saying what Hitchen's is getting at: without Christ's divine nature, you are back to something similar to Confucius: a philosophical framework. Hitchen has no time for Christ's divine nature.

Hitchens has no time for Jesus' bad moral philosophy as well.

 

[Eric D]

I don't believe you know what nit-picking means.
Any god you say? Are you sure about that?

You consider that Zeus; god of the Greek Pantheon who was formed by the Titan Cronus and Rhea; who fathered Heracles and raped a woman as a swan to be as plausible as Yahweh, the Cannaanite Sky god..oops; the well known Jewish tyrant god...uh I mean Christian wishy-washy love god or even Fei-Lian, the Wind Dragon who stirs up typhoons?

They are all the same?

Your concern with unimprotant details is an example of nitpicking. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nitpick Most of us have been guilty of it to some extent. I'm guilty of it right now actually.

Generally, yes they are the same. There's a dominant god, an afterlife, an underworld, and lesser dieties or angels in most religions. The all deserve an equal amount of credence, no matter what the situation.

 

[Eric D]

Okay...we're working from equal definitions now
Yup, this would be a universal claim. And we can prove that, at least in our region of the universe, based on the properties that we've observed, that light doesn't need a medium to travel through. However, while we can safely assume that this is the case throughout the universe, we cannot prove it...unless we are able to observe the properties of light throughout the entire universe at this present moment in time.

Some examples: the light that we observe from distant galaxies is thousands, millions, and even billions of years old. We can make basic observations about that light, and the places it came from...but that information is in fact outdated by up to billions of years. Can you prove to me that the laws of physics have not changed in those regions since then, and that light now requires a medium to travel through? Or can you prove to me that there are not regions of space that we have not observed where the fundamental laws of physics differ, and light requires luminiferous ether?

Your arguments are now drawing closer to my own...despite the fact that you are entirely unable to prove that luminiferous ether does not exist somewhere in the universe, you feel safe -- based on your understanding of how the universe works in our own local region -- in reaching the conclusion that luminiferous ether does not, in fact, exist anywhere in the universe, and that no matter what part of the universe we are talking about, light does not require a medium through which to travel.

I am "safe" in my conclusion that the luminiferous ether is not present because there is evidence to refute it's presence (i.e. light traveling through a vaccum would indicate that a medium for light to travel through is not present.). That's different than having no evidence at all.

If light it traveled through a medium, it would be inconsitent with what we already know is true about how light travels.

The idea of a god is not necessarilly inconsistent with what we already know.

Just out of curiousity what is your official stance? Are you convinced God does not exist or are you not convinced God exists? If you've already answered in another post, I apologize. It's a lot to wade through.

 

[Cicero]

Evidence?

Hitch made this revelation during a debate on C-SPAN with Biran Lamb.

Apparenlty, he also states this in his book "God Is Not Great."


"Like Hitchens, people still get their marriages honoured and their children baptised in the name of a hollow God."
Mary Riddell The Observer, Sunday 3 June 2007

 

[~enigma~]

Actually, that's exactly what it does. Aspirin literally means paracetamol to a lot of people, just like manufacturing doesn't necessarily happen by hand anymore, and just like to a large group of people, atheism means the categorical denial of any Devine existence.

But, that said, I'd like to end this derail here.

Right...the prefix a changes meaning because some people think it means something other than without. Last time i checked, the etymology of a word doesn't change by popular opinion.

 

[Maia]

I would simply say that God is not a coherent idea. Nor will it ever be. And if there is no coherent idea, then there is nothing that this idea could refer to.


And besides, if something is unexplained then it is unexplained. Nothing more. And God doesn't explain it either. If something is unexplaind, the argument is over.

As for modern biblical scholars, we have John Shelby Spong, Bart Ehrman, Paul Tillich, Robert Funk, Roy Hoover, Karen Armstrong, John Dominic Crossan, Robert Miller, Marcus Borg...

Pretty much. Especially JSS, of course. Paul Tillich also outlined something very similar. Thomas J.J. Altizer too. The difference is that they didn't (or don't, if they're still alive) stop there. But yes, this is a part of the only kind of modern theology that I think is worth spending any time on.

 

[paximperium]

Your concern with unimprotant details is an example of nitpicking. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nitpick Most of us have been guilty of it to some extent. I'm guilty of it right now actually.

What you call nitpicking, I all extremely important details. It is details that make each religion unique. It is the details that tell us about the cultures and civilizations they come from. Glossing over them is shortsighted and lazy.

Generally, yes they are the same. There's a dominant god, an afterlife, an underworld, and lesser dieties or angels in most religions.

The highlighted part is the most important. "Generally" only in the most superficial sense. Once you look into the details, they completely and utterly diverge form one another or you start seeing how the local culture has evolve and absorb other religion's myths and legends into them. The afterlife in many cultures are completely and utterly different from one another even among the Jews and the Christo-Islamic afterlife.

The all deserve an equal amount of credence, no matter what the situation.

No they do not. To accept that Guan-Yu, a real-life classic Chinese general ascended to heaven and became the God of War is absurd since you can read the Imperial Emperor's decrees and political thoughts on why he decided to spread the propaganda that lead to the deification of such an individual. Despite that he is worshipped in Hong Kong and many places in American Chinatowns. To accept that Apollo, rides a chariot and drags the sun around the sky is absurd.

The more "Real" and more it affects the natural world(such as wind or thunder gods), the less plausible it is. I can easily dismiss Thunderbirds or Thor causing thunder or Zeus throwing lightning bolts because we know how the world works.

The more wishy-washy and vague a god is, such Yahweh has become or the super vague Deistic or Pantheistic "gods", the more plausible it becomes. In other words, the less detectable and less relevant such a god is, the more plausible is. The more science reveals how the world works, the weaker such gods become.

 

[Puggy]

OT: It's cool that they used my picture of Hitchens in the link in the OP, bad that they didn't give me credit for it.

Aaaaah, the memories of TAM5
http://www.flickr.com/photos/54613395@N00/404073505/in/set-72157594585326649/

 

[H'ethetheth]

Right...the prefix a changes meaning because some people think it means something other than without. Last time i checked, the etymology of a word doesn't change by popular opinion.

Right indeed.
Ironically, your second statement indicates that the word etymology does not mean what you think it means.
People change the meaning of words, more or less regardless of the origin of the word. (I googled; Look up "nice")

 

[~enigma~]

Right indeed.
Ironically, your second statement indicates that the word etymology does not mean what you think it means.
People change the meaning of words, more or less regardless of the origin of the word. (I googled; Look up "nice")

i suppose truth is determined by popular consensus in the Netherlands too.

 

[paximperium]

Right indeed.
Ironically, your second statement indicates that the word etymology does not mean what you think it means.
People change the meaning of words, more or less regardless of the origin of the word. (I googled; Look up "nice")

Like "evolution"?

 

[H'ethetheth]

i suppose truth is determined by popular consensus in the Netherlands too.

I have no idea how you would conclude that from what I've said.
I suppose you're one of those atheists who put sugar in their porridge?

Also, I don't see how the description "without belief in Gods" would preclude people who assert the non-existence of Gods.

Like "evolution"?

I think I see your point, though I may be reading too much into this.
I guess the difference here is that gnostic atheists know their own position, they fully understand the agnostic atheist position but disagree and label themselves atheists anyway, whereas there are no people that fully understand the theory of evolution and take it to mean that life as we know it came about randomly. On the other hand, they do label it evolution anyway, whereas the should use the word evilution, so we know what they're talking about.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

...I think I would have been more accurate in saying that the controversy was "analogous" instead of the same. What I meant, though, was that it really can be said that higher biblical criticism is to lower as evolutionist thinking is to creationist. It changes everything about the way that the Bible is understood, and everything about the Christian worldview. For instance, the question of substitutionary atonement. What kind of sense can it possibly make without beginning from the accepted premise that there's some kind of original sin for which to atone? Or that God literally sent Jesus to earth as a human being who was also divine in order to provide that atonement? (None.) James Alison's theology is interesting (and at least he seems to be GLBT accepting, which is really nice to see), but he's starting from a spiritual-inerrancy premise, IMHO. I don't do this, and I don't think it can really honestly be done. I'm not so sure that everyone around here would agree with me either, but I definitely can't begin from any kind of biblical inerrancy at all.

I understand your issue here but your analogies were still poor. A philosophical controversy would be more like it.

There is no direct evidence the historical Jesus ever existed (see other threads to debate this). There is nothing that really collaborates the New Testament's historical record of Jesus. So I find arguing about what he did or didn't say or mean is really to argue what the mythical text was intended to mean or not. I find debating the intent of the Bible to be analogous to debating the intent of Greek story tellers when they invented their god stories, or the intent of the Hopi Indian god stories and so on.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'm assuming you all know Hitchens was only agreeing with the theologian here and that Wilson was the person who actually stated the premise in the discussion.

From the OP link:

"If Jesus didn't come back from the dead, then Christianity is appalling, it's an appalling fraud and delusion and every unbeliever should attack it," Wilson said. "Christianity is not good for the world because it makes people decent and sober and that sort of thing. At the end of the day, if it's not true, if it's not objectively true, then I don't have any more use for it than Christopher does."

Hitchens echoed that idea, but made it clear he does actually consider Christianity a fraud.

"They say, well the Bible story's not really true, they're morality tales. Don't listen to it, because if it's based on a fraud, if the virgin birth and the resurrection and the miracles did not occur, which they did not, then those teachings are immoral, they teach that sins can be forgiven by throwing them on to a scapegoat -- a positively wicked doctrine."

 

[Slayhamlet]

I know, that was precisely the point.

ETA: After rereading my drug store story, I can see where the confusion arises. The point is that people here in the Netherlands use the word 'aspirin' to mean 'little white pain killer pill', and that includes drug store clerks, apparently.

It's commonly used that way in the U.S. as well. Kind of like Kleenex is used for any facial tissue.

 

[Slayhamlet]

Right...the prefix a changes meaning because some people think it means something other than without. Last time i checked, the etymology of a word doesn't change by popular opinion.

The etymology of a word can't change, of course, but the meaning very well can (and does, all the time). This is so trivially obvious that I'm at a loss as to how anyone could fail to realize it.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Hitchens has no time for Jesus' bad moral philosophy as well.

Yeah, loving your neighbor as yourself is so whack.

 

[paximperium]

Yeah, loving your neighbor as yourself is so whack.

Was that all Jesus had to say? Was that an even interesting or original "philosophy"?...yeah I didn't think it was a very "honest" reply either.

 

[~enigma~]

The etymology of a word can't change, of course, but the meaning very well can (and does, all the time). This is so trivially obvious that I'm at a loss as to how anyone could fail to realize it.

The meaning of the prefix a always has meant without. I am at a loss as to how anyone can think otherwise.