Moderated Book about Hitchens claims he almost converted

[The Big Dog]

All right, let us go there. . . .I write a book that claims that you talked about wearing lace underwear but never did. If I publish it after your death, how can you refute it?

what in the sam hell does that have to do with reading the book?

 

[Desert Fox]

what in the sam hell does that have to do with reading the book?

I am curious, have you read the books written by Hitchens? If not, might it not be best to read his own words first?

 

[The Big Dog]

I am curious, have you read the books written by Hitchens? If not, might it not be best to read his own words first?

Sure, I read his absolutely unhinged attack on Blessed Thersea of Calcutta and thought to myself if you wanted the finest anti-Catholic/colonial screed by a racist Btter British drunk, this is the book for you.

The missionary position, the insipid clown apparently got his book's name after a meeting with a pack of seventh graders.

 

[Tero]

Death bed conversion. Ha.

My dad was dying. My mom thought they should buy lotto tickets every week.And prayed. Like that was going to prevent him from dying. But hey, the ticket worked better than the prayer.

 

[Desert Fox]

Sure, I read his absolutely unhinged attack on Blessed Thersea of Calcutta and thought to myself if you wanted the finest anti-Catholic/colonial screed by a racist Btter British drunk, this is the book for you.

The missionary position, the insipid clown apparently got his book's name after a meeting with a pack of seventh graders.

So you are admitting that you have not read Mortality or God is Not Great? So do you care to explain why you are willing to take what somebody else wrote about Hitchen when he was dying when he wrote about it himself in Mortality?

 

[The Big Dog]

So you are admitting that you have not read Mortality or God is Not Great? So do you care to explain why you are willing to take what somebody else wrote about Hitchen when he was dying when he wrote about it himself in Mortality?

Magnificent example of the rule of so.

You asked me if I read Chrissy's stuff, didn't you? I did.

You gonna read this book, or shall I count you with "skeptics" who refuse to?

 

[Desert Fox]

Magnificent example of the rule of so.

You asked me if I read Chrissy's stuff, didn't you? I did.

You gonna read this book, or shall I count you with "skeptics" who refuse to?

You are specifically refusing to read the book written by Hitchens on his own death. In effect, you are refusing to read a primary source while I don't consider it worth reading a secondary, and almost certainly biased, source.

 

[The Big Dog]

You are specifically refusing to read the book written by Hitchens on his own death. In effect, you are refusing to read a primary source while I don't consider it worth reading a secondary, and almost certainly biased, source.

Your claim about me is ridiculously false.

You are not going to read the book under discussion but are going to rip it without doing so.

Oh my....

 

[Desert Fox]

Your claim about me is ridiculously false.

You are not going to read the book under discussion but are going to rip it without doing so.

Oh my....

What I arguing is that if I want to know what a person's thought are as they are dying, I will read what they wrote not what somebody else wrote four years after that person died.

Otherwise, I consider it not important enough to read. I am far more interested in reading actual arguments based on evidence with regards to religious claims (and other issues.)

 

[catsmate]

Bwhahaha! You serious?

Yes.

The part I like best is that you already made your mind up, and then add that snarky "hey, that might contradict something you desperately want to believe."

Indeed, I've evaluated the evidence (Hitchens didn't "almost" convert") and interpret the book accordingly

Hey, with that level of irony you could corner the *********** steel market.

So no rational response then, as usual.

I don't need to read it to know it contains lies! That is Westbrook baptist level reasoning.

Really? So I need to read all the 911 conspiracy rants to understand that they're wrong?

 

[catsmate]

Lolz. Rule of so.

Did you read the book?

No rational response to the question, how unusual for you.

or ya know, you can read the *********** book.

Or yoy can read what Hitchens actually wrote, and listen to what he said.

You'd have to be pretty gullible to believe this. Of course, targeting this book at religious folk is a smart marketing idea. It'll sell well.

True, they're a particularly popular group for scammers.

Badly written, the single most referenced work in the history of literature is badly written.

Yes it is. Plus it's full of contradictions and factual errors.

 

[Magrat]

Let's also point out that the Bible is "the most referenced work in history" largely because the church controlled the entirety of western culture for centuries and people not only didn't know much else but what was church approved, but also were not permitted to reference anything else. So that's kinda like saying English must be the best language because it was imposed on so many other countries through colonialism that they lost their own main languages.

 

[ComfySlippers]

The Bible was scribbled down to appeal to the ignorant, illiterate masses.
They had to have it read to them, of course.
Yep, definitely not a crappy book full of utter bollocks.

 

[angrysoba]

It seems to me that Hitch was a very tolerant man. A very fair, neutral intellectual. It seems to me that Larry simply interpreted this as sympathy instead of honesty. For a guy that believes that a man rose from the dead, not a huge lapse of reason. What's the big deal? He already believes far more ridiculous things about reality than his asinine meanderings about what Hitch thought.

"Neutral"? No, he was not neutral! I'm pretty sure he despised the idea of neutrality as though it were a virtue.

However, he was surely capable of disentangling a person from a position. I think if he personally liked a person he was more than happy to engage them and yet to offer no quarter when it came to ideas.

 

[angrysoba]

what in the sam hell does that have to do with reading the book?

None of us, including you, have read the book. So it is premature of you to use anyone else's lack of having read the book to score points. However, you have obviously telegraphed your strategy for future debates. I'm sure none of us can wait until you can plausibly tell us that your having read the book makes you some kind of authority.

Sure, I read his absolutely unhinged attack on Blessed Thersea of Calcutta and thought to myself if you wanted the finest anti-Catholic/colonial screed by a racist Btter British drunk, this is the book for you.

The missionary position, the insipid clown apparently got his book's name after a meeting with a pack of seventh graders.

Uh-oh! Sounds like someone has an axe to grind.

 

[Beerina]

I will never have a deathbed conversion. I will not worship whatever created this universe, which sits idly by while babies get raped to death.

 

[The Big Dog]

None of us, including you, have read the book. So it is premature of you to use anyone else's lack of having read the book to score points. However, you have obviously telegraphed your strategy for future debates. I'm sure none of us can wait until you can plausibly tell us that your having read the book makes you some kind of authority.

Uh-oh! Sounds like someone has an axe to grind.

I am not using "anyone else's lack of having read the book to score points." I am however pointing out that it is grossly unskeptical to rip the book, before having read it and while at the same time declaring that one has no intention of doing so.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Let's also point out that the Bible is "the most referenced work in history" largely because the church controlled the entirety of western culture for centuries and people not only didn't know much else but what was church approved, but also were not permitted to reference anything else.

I'd add to that the fact that throughout the early middle ages, and most of the high middle ages at that, churches and monasteries actively destroyed other manuscripts. They'd take some 'pagan' treatise by Aristotle or Galen or whatever, erase the writing on it, and 'redeem' it by writing a bible on it.

That is, when they weren't just plain old destroyed in a great book bonfire.

To the extent that Europe had to later rediscover its own classics off manuscripts looted from the Arabs in the Crusades.

Though ultimately my main objection to the "most quoted" thing is: so what? I mean, if we were to apply that test to, say, movies, some of the most quoted, paraphrased and otherwise referenced include "Airplane!", "Star Wars", "Terminator", "The Shining", etc. I don't know exactly which is THE most quoted of them, but whichever it is, just being quoted doesn't make it TRUE.

So WTH cocamamie argument for Xianity is its having a bunch of quotes turned memes? I should believe... err... why? Just because it comes with some snazzy quotes? WTH?

 

[The Big Dog]

I'd add to that the fact that throughout the early middle ages, and most of the high middle ages at that, churches and monasteries actively destroyed other manuscripts. They'd take some 'pagan' treatise by Aristotle or Galen or whatever, erase the writing on it, and 'redeem' it by writing a bible on it.

Oh come on....

Medieval Monasticism as Preserver of Western Civilization

 

[Magrat]

Excellent point Hans. And there's the fact that the church exercised extreme censorship with what was allowed to be printed , so even if people wanted to quote Shelly or someone anti-theist they weren't able to find a printer willing to go to jail to share that work.

Basically 16 is claiming the bible is true because the church didn't allow anything else to be used, so people quoted what they had. Which makes me wonder if he then agrees with the Quaran, since ISIL doesn't allow anything else there, and if Confucious was also true, because Chinese and Japanese authorities didn't allow anything else there. Yeah, censorship!