Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#101  Postby jez9999 » Nov 28, 2010 9:22 pm

From the second page of this transcript:
Tony Blair wrote:What I would say to you is this exclusivism is not -- you know, this type of excluding other people because they're different, let's just nail the myth that this is solely the prerogative of religion. I'm afraid this happens in many, many different walks of life. It's not what true religion is about. True religion is not about excluding somebody because they're different, true religion is actually about embracing someone who is different. That is why, you know, in every major religion, this concept of love of neighbour

See, this was the major thrust of Blair's argument all night. His assertion that every religion has pluralism, love, reason, and other secular humanist values at its core. This is pure hand-wavey waffle, and it's just plain false. Had he read the Quran and understood its real meaning, its 'true' meaning, he'd realise that Mohammed's god wasn't all that interested in making friends with non-Muslims or treating woman equally. Blair basically picked from every religion's values, a-la-carte, the good bits, and threw away the bad bits.

But who is he to say that this is the 'true nature' of all religions? How is he objectively any more correct than someone who says the true core of Christianity is about land grabs in the Middle East, extremely brutal punishments for transgressions, homophobia, disrespect for woman, etc? It's just Blair arbitrarily assigning positive values to religion and calling it religion's 'true values'. How that is not false is beyond me. And Peter Brown, CdesignProponentsist, and Scar above... Blair's argument WAS false, in the way I've just described. I might as well try and defend the North Korean regime because I assert that the TRUE nature of the regime is love for its people and the desire for peace and happiness... it's just unfortunate that some bad apples have given a bad name to the Kim Il-Sung worship clan.

Come on.
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#102  Postby Peter Brown » Nov 29, 2010 3:37 am

I would say you had a point, but Tony did say religious people did do evil things in the name of religion and so did not deny it. Tony is what I would call the new wave of believers that claim the text is not what the religion is about. He may have a point? Should you believe the text of books that have talking snakes and flying horses? But those that read the text might end up doing naughty things written there and cease being the people Tony is defending.
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#103  Postby Ihavenofingerprints » Nov 29, 2010 5:27 am

I loved this bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II9GbQHtaOQ#t=0210s

(linked to certain time in video)
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#104  Postby jez9999 » Nov 29, 2010 6:39 pm

Peter Brown wrote:Tony is what I would call the new wave of believers that claim the text is not what the religion is about. He may have a point? Should you believe the text of books that have talking snakes and flying horses?

If I didn't know better, I'd say you were joking. Religion, just... without the holy books that underlie it defining what it's about? They're building themselves a mile-high ladder, and then kicking the ladder out from beneath themselves. Once they've got to over a billion believers, they can just throw the religious texts away that got them to where they are today (mainly through fear of hell) and just change whatever they feel like to fit in with the modern world? :lol:

Surely the logical and inescapable conclusion is not that they should do that, but that they should drop the pretense of belief in this stuff altogether.
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#105  Postby I'm With Stupid » Nov 29, 2010 7:07 pm

jez9999 wrote:Surely the logical and inescapable conclusion is not that they should do that, but that they should drop the pretense of belief in this stuff altogether.

Nah, you can't do that, because the whole thing relies on belief in belief, which requires the continued facade. They need to continually tell everyone that faith in itself is a positive thing, or they'll lose anything they have to offer in the eyes of society, and therefore all political influence and money-making potential, which is what it's really all about.
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#106  Postby jez9999 » Nov 29, 2010 8:21 pm

I'm With Stupid wrote:
jez9999 wrote:Surely the logical and inescapable conclusion is not that they should do that, but that they should drop the pretense of belief in this stuff altogether.

Nah, you can't do that, because the whole thing relies on belief in belief, which requires the continued facade. They need to continually tell everyone that faith in itself is a positive thing, or they'll lose anything they have to offer in the eyes of society, and therefore all political influence and money-making potential, which is what it's really all about.

But I'm looking at things from the lay person's point of view, not the megachurch millionaire pastor.

Yeah, I know Blair claims to be a lay Catholic but is really one of the bigwigs...
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#107  Postby Jakov » Nov 30, 2010 9:50 pm


Must religion keep losing the argument?

Paradoxically, Christopher Hitchens must be due for canonisation as a secular saint. In the broadcast snatches of his Toronto debate against Tony Blair on whether religion is a force for good, Hitchens assumed a kind of divine grandeur.


Clearly, the social welfare argument is not working, so why not go for broke with sacred awe?


http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... rgument.do



She's got no chance with awe. Looking through the Hubble telescope or contemplating binary star systems beats a burning bush any day.
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#108  Postby trubble76 » Nov 30, 2010 9:58 pm

Jakov wrote:

Must religion keep losing the argument?

Paradoxically, Christopher Hitchens must be due for canonisation as a secular saint. In the broadcast snatches of his Toronto debate against Tony Blair on whether religion is a force for good, Hitchens assumed a kind of divine grandeur.


Clearly, the social welfare argument is not working, so why not go for broke with sacred awe?


http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/ ... rgument.do



She's got no chance with awe. Looking through the Hubble telescope or contemplating binary star systems beats a burning bush any day.


But they have the baybee geezuz, and he strangled snakes with his bare hands or something like that
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#109  Postby Ihavenofingerprints » Dec 01, 2010 3:37 am

Ihavenofingerprints wrote:I loved this bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II9GbQHtaOQ#t=0210s

(linked to certain time in video)


Sorry, didn't realize that video had been taken down, here is the working link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVD0yU9-v60#t=210s
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#110  Postby Emo Bear » Dec 12, 2010 10:49 am

 
The cure for poverty has a name, in fact. It's called the empowerment of women... Try it in Bangladesh and Bolivia, it works all the time. Name me one religion that stands for that, or ever has.

Hitchens has used this before in debates, he elaborates a bit on it, but I don't get why (besides time constraints) he doesn't go to town on it — going in-depth on “Women's Rights in Religion”, religion by religion. For example: you'll never see a female Pope (a Popette?) Also countless examples to choose from for Islam. And even in Buddhism: http://i.imgur.com/XrwBe.jpg

Somebody please write a book on women's rights and religion.
 
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#111  Postby smudge » Dec 15, 2010 7:35 am

Emo Bear wrote: 
Somebody please write a book on women's rights and religion.
 



Now thats a damn good idea Emo Bear! :thumbup:
Alas, it would be a huge undertaking....and the finished volume HUGE!
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#112  Postby Emo Bear » Dec 20, 2010 5:15 pm

smudge wrote:Now thats a damn good idea Emo Bear! :thumbup:
Alas, it would be a huge undertaking....and the finished volume HUGE!

Well, it could be in multiple volumes like this:

Women's Rights in Religion — Volume I: Christianity
Women's Rights in Religion — Volume II: Islam
Women's Rights in Religion — Volume III: Eastern Religions

Each volume would detail the history from the early days to present time.

To be fair, there are female pastors. But of course, some stand by 1 Corinthians 14:34 and condemn this:

“If you attend a church that has a female pastor, you are following a lost women to a burning hell. The great danger is that you are most likely not saved yourself.” — http://www.johnecoleman.org/FemalePastor.htm

 
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Re: Blair vs The Hitch upcoming in Toronto

#113  Postby Beatsong » Dec 21, 2010 1:37 am

Scar wrote:Yeah, that's what happens when a theist is intellectually honest. It really shows how much substance there really is to theism.


Blair was intellectually honest? Christ, that's a first.

Maybe I should have watched this after all.
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