Is Christianity Good for the World? Hitchens debate...

[RED FACE]

In 6 parts just completed. They try to define terms.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/.../119-12.0.html

[luckyme]

The topic is too large for such a quick exchange and would have been better served with a very tight target area defined early.
An ok read while playing SNG's but likely not the best effort by either of them. Hitchens doesn't adjust well to the surface level needed when facing a lighter weight opponent. Just when it threatened to get interesting a fluff point would need to be addressed.
Give it a C.

luckyme

[Silent A]

After reading the first 2 parts, all I can say is: "This Wilson guy sucks."

[m_the0ry]

The abstinence only campaign which is demonstrably and statistically completely ineffective is carried out in majority by the Evangelical Christian organization. The US government funnels money to them every year for a program that produces literally NO results. And yet their lobbyists keep it going.

[chezlaw]

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The abstinence only campaign which is demonstrably and statistically completely ineffective is carried out in majority by the Evangelical Christian organization. The US government funnels money to them every year for a program that produces literally NO results. And yet their lobbyists keep it going.

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Loonies making no difference, sounds like great value for money.

chez

[Zeno]

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The abstinence only campaign which is demonstrably and statistically completely ineffective is carried out in majority by the Evangelical Christian organization. The US government funnels money to them every year for a program that produces literally NO results. And yet their lobbyists keep it going.

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Loonies making no difference, sounds like great value for money.

chez

[/ QUOTE ]

Having loonies squander their shinny coin to no affect is indeed not a bad thing. But loonies have been, still are, and most probably always will be (unless the bent coin problem is solved) about the globe selling their snake oil. And past history proves, beyond any doubt, that more often than not the loonies get full value for their shinny coin. Even a simple perusal of what many of the posters on this forum believe is proof enough of that. Never underestimate the power of stupidity - or faith. I will come back to haunt ya. In spades.

Le Misanthrope

[NotReady]

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In 6 parts just completed.


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This is an excellent debate. Wilson totally demolished Hitchens. Those who think otherwise are just wrong. I thought I was reading my own posts. Outstanding.

The main, almost only, issue that devloped, was the moral issue. Hitchens did his best impression of a boxer trying to duck the question and deflect the blows that kept landing, but in the end, he just stood there bleeding.

Some quotes on the issue:

Wilson:
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Now we really need to address the point you continue to miss. I am not talking about whether atheists must do evil, or if they can do evil. I have denied the former, and you have now granted the latter. But that is not the point. We are not talking about whether your atheism compels you to run downtown this evening to shoot out the street lights. I grant that it does not. And we are not talking about whether atheists can do vile things. You grant that they can. We are talking about (or, more accurately, I am trying to talk about) whether or not atheism provides any rational basis for rational condemnation when others decide to misbehave this way. You keep saying, "I have come to my ethical position." I keep asking, "Yes, quite. But why did you do so?"

If Christianity is bad for the world, atheists can't consistently point this out, having no fixed way of defining "bad." If Christianity is good for the world, atheists should not be asked about it either because they have no way of defining "good."


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Hitchens proves a point I've often repeated here, that all atheistic worldviews reduce to pragmatism:

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But I answer your question by making the pragmatic observation that, if we surrendered to our lower instincts all the time, there would be no language in which to write this argument between us and no society in which we could find an audience.


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Wilson finally shows a little understandable impatience with the evasive Hitchens:

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After this many installments, I now feel comfortable in asserting that I have posed this question to you from every point of the compass and have not yet received anything that approaches the semblance of an answer.


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Great debate, thanks for the link.

[Woolygimp]

Yeah, I think Wilson won this one.

[LooseCaller]

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Yeah, I think Wilson won this one.

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how? he just constantly tries to redefine the terms of the discussion away from whether or not christianity is beneficial to society to some inane discussion of the authority of atheist morality. this is, of course, an impossible question to explain to someone who insists on there being absolutes in morality derived from an absolute moral authority. atheists are pragmatists on this issue, so we simply create a morality out of what is generally beneficial to people and it most often is a simple use of the golden rule as a basic measure of the laws of human interaction. because we dont believe in god, we dont need an absolute morality. proving someone like stalin or kim jong-il is a bad person is completely besides the point.

[Ben K]

I see your point NR, and from it I see how you (and wollygmp) can come to the conclusion that Hitchens lost but I don't buy it.

Two points (which I'll leave with you till the morrow)

1. To address the point that atheists have no fixed definition of bad or good - Christians have no fixed definition of bad or good either. The interpretations of the bible which provide the Christians wth their fixing points have changed over the centuries. The change is not what I would associate with the term 'fixed'

Even if you make some sort of claim that earlier interpretations were wrong and that you're improving them over time, then I would simply point out that you have no way of knowing these changes are improvements because you've had no further prophets to get any new information from god to create new interpretations of the original information.

2. Atheists and theists do, in fact, have the same ways of deciding good and bad and for both groups these are not fixed. Reality has shown that fixed standards of morality fails to maximise moral behaviour. Fixing moral standards is a flaw of any dogma. The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is a flawed moral statement. There are plenty of situations where it is more moral to kill than to do, or permit, some other action.

Wilson's question in your quote of "Yes quite, but why did you do so?" is a rubbish statement. How did you arrive at your ethical position is a much better question to ask because it opens up the process by which decisions are made. To ask the why question is to beg the question because it assume there is some entity that we may have to justify ouselves to at some later point in time.

At this point I confess to not having read past the third installment. If any of the above is answered there then fine but I got from your post that it wasn't (or you found it unsatsfactory)

I don't think you've ever suggested why a moral code that reduces to pragmatism is bad. I don't think there is an argument that does so without referring to something supernatural. But to use that as an argument for the existence of the supernatural is circular. We can only ever do what best at the time we do something.