Christopher Hitchens Talks About the “New Atheists”

I hate that term, “Brights”. I hate it. It is sticky-sweet. Like eating ice cream topped with sugar wrapped in cotton candy drenched in chocolate syrup. It makes me want to vomit.

Are those really a 3′ high stacks of books behind him? Or some kind or quirky wallpaper?

I’ve never been a fan of the “Brights” movement. Ooh, shiny. Brights defenders have expressed explicitly that the label isn’t meant to suggest that non-theists are smarter than everyone else. That’s wonderful, but what puzzles me is that while they felt such a disclaimer is necessary, have they really never considered why such a disclaimer is necessary?

If you’re an atheist, call yourself an atheist. If you’re a naturalist, call yourself a naturalist. Whatever label you choose, you’re going to have to explain it to people anyway. And never forget that there are always going to be people who hate you because you disagree with them, regardless of whatever silly sugar-coated label you give yourself.

I almost feel like religion could be like a vehicle. A car, truck, bus.. whatever. And a religious person driving it may say the car must be moving by unseen people pushing or pulling it. Because after all, they don’t actually understand how the engine works since they keep above the hood and only focus on what-ifs, probabilities, and feel like the only possibilities are what they could imagine.

But the scientist who drives the car, has a curiosity about how it works and studies it. Learns about the engine, learns about physics, and chemical reactions, and electricity. They pose hypothesis:I hypothesis this car must run on a source of a limited energy, if this is true, the car should eventually stop running once it’s depleted, and will NOT run again until refilled with the energy source. And look at that, it’s proven true! So there COULDN’T be little people pushing or pulling the car!

The car, it turns out was much more complicated than what the human brain may have actually thought, had it never knew of a vehicle before.

……. kind of a long, loose, childish analogy. But it popped into my head and wanted to share it.

It takes a lot out of me just listening to him, because i’m not that intelligent or grammatically gifted. I really have to force myself to pay attention to glean any understanding out of his words. But alas, my mind wanders as do my fingers whilst picking at some boogers.

Dan,

That is a fantastic analogy. Every week they present the gifts of Exxon to their god, GM and his lost son Humvee. Legend has it that if they obey all the conflicting rules they will not end up in the junk yard.

I should watch it again but there was a brief section where I think I heard Hitchen’s claim that in England there is an agreement with the Muslim populace. That in a sense they get preferential treatment; something about muslim courts.

Is there any truth to this?

Is there any truth to this?

Sort of – Google “sharia law uk”.
For certain matters, citizens may elect to use sharia courts instead of the regular legal system; mostly civil cases, estates, etc… but there have been some disturbing exceptions.