Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry on Intelligence Squared debate

[felixofgolden]

Not sure if this would be a Tv/Media or misc post or not.
Did anyone see Stephen Fry on the Intelligence Squared debate on the BBC last night? The topic was "Is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world?"
Here's a youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvZz_...3374A3&index=0

[Ward Fowler]

Thanks for the link. I'm a big Hitchens fan.

[trampledamage]

Christopher Hitchens on Catholicism? This I have to see!

It was from him that I realised the devil's advocate is an actual job. Hitchens was the Vatican-appointed devil's advocate arguing against Mother Theresa's sainthood.

Thanks for posting the link, I'll watch later this evening.

[J. Allen]

Interesting.
While I am a fan of Stephen Fry, I can only barely tolerate Christopher Hitchens (this applies to Richard Dawkins as well) whom I consider an evangelical atheist, in that he cannot simply not believe in something, he has to push back against what he believes is a great threat to logic and rational thinking, ie., religions of all types.

J.

[trampledamage]

I agree with you about Hitchen's evangelism, but I find his articles worth reading, even though I often disagree with him.

[J. Allen]

trampledamage wrote:

---

I agree with you about Hitchen's evangelism, but I find his articles worth reading, even though I often disagree with him.

Oh, certainly. He is a very intelligent man, and I am impressed with his range of knowledge. However, it is his attitude and assumptions about my supposed lack of intelligence which I find most off putting. I think you know me well enough to understand that I harbor no ill will toward atheism or atheists. I have been close to that myself at times, and I certainly understand why someone can be atheist. Such a person is no less moral or ethical than I am, and they are not less of a person because they hold no religious belief.

I would simply like Mr. Hitchens to keep that in mind when he goes on one of his frequent tirades against people of faith who bring him no harm.

Quite honestly, my favorite intellectual who was also atheist (well, agnostic anyway) would have to be Carl Sagan. I loved the man's attitude, his desire to share knowledge regardless of one's personal beliefs, and his desire to see a united humanity. I consider him a truly inspiring person and when I learned he had died (back when I was 16), even then when I was at my most devoted in faith, I felt deeply saddened, because I considered him the torch bearer for the lay scientist, the common man who was interested in the uncommon universe.

I know it's a bit off topic, but imagine my delight when I discovered the entire series of Cosmos available for instant watching on Netflix! I am halfway through them and there's an imprinted groove on my couch where I watched many of them one right after the other in one sitting.

J.