How Genesis Is Not Only Literally False, But Metaphorically False

Mary Midgley argues that only the views of fundamentalist literalists are refuted by the fact of evolution: Appeals to evolution are only damaging to biblical literalism. Certainly the events described inGenesis 1 are not literally compatible with what science (from long before Darwin’s day) tells us about the antiquity of the Earth. But this is not […]

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22 Comments From Christopher Hitchens

In an effort to hype Hitch-22: A Memoir, they’ve put together a short video recapping classic Hitchens quips: Your Thoughts?

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Hitchens On His Gay Side, His “Conservative Marxism”, And His Money Motive

Promoting his new book,Hitch-22: A Memoir, last weekend Christopher Hitchens provided frequently witty replies to frequently dimwitted questions from the New York Times’s Deborah Solomon. Here are a few provocative highlights: What did you mean to suggest by including the detail about your long-ago flings with two men who became part of Margaret Thatcher’s administration? […]

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The Church’s Blatant Contradictions, Past And Present

Christopher Hitchens is concerned that the majority Catholic and secularist-free Supreme Court may have a conflict of interests when it answers the question of whether the Vatican should have sovereign immunity protections to shield it from lawsuits over the sexual abuse carried out within American parishes.  He also is suspicious of Elena Kagan for her […]

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Is The Catholic Church A Force For Good In The World? (And Do The New Atheists Persuade Anyone?)

Do New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry turn off more people than they persuade?  I always emphatically argue no and the video below is solid evidence that I’m right.  Before this debate the audience was polled on whether they wanted to support the motion, “The Catholic church is a force for good in the […]

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Hitchens At Festival Of Dangerous Ideas

Part of his Australian tour we have been following this past week: Terrific, funny, fresh, and (what should be) convincing material. Full talk here. Your Thoughts?

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More Of New Hitchens From Australia

On Friday he went on the radio: Your Thoughts?

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Judge This: Hitchens On Whether Islamist Jihad Is Justifiable Response To Western Imperialism

The question is morally challenging but I think Hitchens’s reply is compelling and impressive.  Your Thoughts? And for a bonus, to add more fuel to the fire of this topic, here is (a hilarious) Bill Maher on why our extremists are not as bad as Muslim ones: Your Thoughts?

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Disambiguating Faith: Heart Over Reason

In reply to Rod Dreher’s recent post explaining his decision to train his children’s wills to be faithful since the intellect was not a firm foundation of faith, I critically characterized his position as essentially boiling down to the following: So, the solution is not to train your children to be intellectually scrupulous but to […]

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In Defense Of Mocking And Embarrassing Religion

(I’m moving this post from last summer to the front page today since its topic is relevant to “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.) Unreasonable Faith just profiled this interesting looking documentary on a tour of debates between Christopher Hitchens and Doug Wilson. In the comments section to that post, Custador wrote the following about Christopher Hitchens: […]

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Lincoln And Religion

Christopher Hitchens reviewing Michael Burlingame’s new book, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, has this brief discussion of Lincoln and religion: Lincoln sought a deft means of negotiating the shoals of the religious question. Burlingame’s highly diverting early pages show Lincoln being actively satirical in matters of faith, lampooning preachers, staging mock services, and praying to God […]

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The Mother Teresa Debate

Thanks to Unreasonable Faith for the find. Your Thoughts?

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How Atheists Can Avoid Other Fundamentalisms: By Focusing On Rationalism First And Foremost

I agree with this a whole lot (I most recommend the last link to PZ Myers’s assessment of Hitchens on war): The real-world implications of the “New Atheists” ideas are not insulated from the same dogmatism and intolerance that they decry. To get back to my original point about rationalism, the religious aspect is only […]

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Pat Condell Excoriates The Left For Not Standing Up To Islamism

There is a lot to chew on in this latest rant from Pat Condell on the need for the tolerant to be more intolerant of intolerant religions than they are intolerant of denouncers of intolerant religions.  While Condell’s  attack on multiculturalism is too broad and at times his rhetoric is cringe-inducingly counter-productive, I do share […]

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Free Speech is Sacred

Old news from when I was not blogging that I want to make sure I have a post which is a resource on this topic. Lou Dobbs and Christopher Hitchens with invaluable report on UN Resolution And for more about the issue of the Orwellian UN resolution against “defamation of religion,” these two articles by […]

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How Best to Support the Iranians? Larison vs. Hitchens

Daniel Larison excellently states the case for personal support for Iranian freedom but non-involvement by the US government: Something that I don’t quite understand is why anyone would conclude that silence or minimal comment condemning the Iranian government’s violence by government officials requires that private individuals refrain from expressing their moral support. There has been […]

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