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Blair, Hitchens to debate religion in Toronto

I watched it, and enjoyed it.

I did enjoy how Blair set up Hitchens when he mentioned how religious leaders helped to heal the religious divide in Ireland.
 
I bought the on-demand video. It will not start, it just keeps loading with the image of some bald guy.


I am rage.
 
ShadowSot said:
I watched it, and enjoyed it.

I did enjoy how Blair set up Hitchens when he mentioned how religious leaders helped to heal the religious divide in Ireland.
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Reminds me of the supposed miracles where God intervenes but no one blames God for the tragedy in the first place.
 
I was going to post a bit of a critique on Hitch.

Much as I like him, I thought he gave William Lane Craig a bit of a pass in their debate.

THIS was him in full flight.

...Plus I like seeing Blair look like a tosser.
 
I've noticed that in all these 'is religion good' debates, the religious side always has this tone of pleading in their voices, like their only option left is to beg the audience to side with them.
 
Is it worth watching?

I saw Hitch and Fry debate Claire Short and that Catholic bishop.

It was like watching Mike Tyson go in the ring with a nest of puppies. Taking them out one-by-one, showing them to the cameras and then casually crushing them in his hands and throwing their lifeless little bodies into the audience.

It was officially the biggest bloodbath in the history of debating.

But Blair is a good public speaker and smart and dishonest enough to resort to some clever sophistry, so this might be a bit more fun to watch.
 
Eddie Dane said:
Is it worth watching?

I saw Hitch and Fry debate Claire Short and that Catholic bishop.

It was like watching Mike Tyson go in the ring with a nest of puppies. Taking them out one-by-one, showing them to the cameras and then casually crushing them in his hands and throwing their lifeless little bodies into the audience.

It was officially the biggest bloodbath in the history of debating.

But Blair is a good public speaker and smart and dishonest enough to resort to some clever sophistry, so this might be a bit more fun to watch.
Click to expand...

It was worth it to see Hitch in full flight.

As a contest, it was pretty much as big a blood bath as the Inelligence Squared one, largely, I'll admit, because Blair was pretty honest about his side.

He was left to saying "Yes religion can be evil, yes people can be moral without religion, but SOMETIMES the opposite is true".

The one clanger I saw him make that I was dissapointed Hitch didn't jump on was to the effect "The REAL purpose of religion is for everyone to get along"- not only a classic No True Scotsman argument, but ridiculous on it's face- like, "I want to help and co-operate with you, just a bit of a shame you're going to hell and I'm not"!!
 
Blair brought up the Hitler- Stalin- Pol Pot axis of "non- religious evil" ploy. I thought the Hitler "didn't do religion" (let along the rest of the Nazis) point should have been at least been batted away.
Also he claimed Einstein as a Believer.

Blair was pretty lame and unconvincing. His funniest remark was about the aftermath of a fourth general election by Labour.
By the way , what was the result of the second post debate vote?
 
For those in the UK, there is a Newsnight special in 30 minutes on BBC2, "In a wide-ranging special interview, Jeremy Paxman talks to Christopher Hitchens about his cancer diagnosis, his life, his politics and his writing."

I expect it will be on iPlayer shortly afterwards.
 
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