On I Love You Christopher Hitchens, You Irritating Bastard
@Babak Golshahi@twitter I'm not used to finding "comments" I agree with posted anywhere, so I was pleasantly surprised to find yours. Your analysis of skepticism is bang on. Hitchens does not rule out the possibility of a creator, he merely says it is unlikely given what we now know about the origins of the universe. Of course this is very much the position of a skeptic. But let me be clear about the author of this article. Bustillos fails to grasp two of the subjects she tackles here, misunderstanding and misrepresenting Hitchens'opinnions on both Iraq and Religion. It would take a long time to list all of the errors, so I'll focus on one aspect. I wrote the following to the friend that sent me the link to this piece:
the article is irritating, but it has some great anecdotes and quotes at the beginning, as well, later in the article it draws my attention to previously unknown sources of criticism. Chris Hedges (who is not mentioned in this article) also has intelligent criticisms of the new atheists, yet this writer (I make liberal use of the term here) is very content to make a straw man of Hitchens in relationship to both his political arguments and his religious ones. Here is one example of this turgid writing (and there are many more).
"But instead of being fans of the King James Bible or of the Dalai Lama or whatever, Hitchens mawkishly advises that we seek the infinite in 'the beauty and mystery of the double helix' instead. Why not a rose? Seriously."
For starters, just notice how sloppy the sentences are in this paragraph ("or whatever"). Once you've soaked that up consider the following: while Hitchens would never describe himself as a fan (as it is short for fanatic) of anything, and he has indeed attacked the Dalai Lama (see Love, Poverty & War), he has great reverence for the King James Bible as a work of literature and says so just about every time he mentions it. Hitchens proposition that the double helix is beautiful is not contrasted against any suggestion of the ugliness of ancient literature, but of the rather uninspiring image of a burning bush (a purported miracle) which he rightly points out is not that impressive to us in the twenty-first century, even when it does appear to spontaneously combust, for we tend, especially on days like today (anticipated to be the hottest day on record in Toronto, and leading to almost unheard of forest fires in our province), to see a relationship between the chemical properties that cause fire and the actual fire. A rose may be magnificent to some, but to others the inner workings of life are somewhat more awe-inspiring.
If you are interested I'd be glad to list all of the errors related her assesment of his political arguments, but for now I must bid you goodbye. Thanks again for the post.
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On I Love You Christopher Hitchens, You Irritating Bastard
@LondonLee Awesome!