--- In [email protected], quantum packet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > "If God intended reasonable men and women > to worship Him without embarrassment, why did > He create Christopher Hitchens? It was a > fatal miscalculation. In God Is Not > Great, Hitchens not only demonstrates > that religion is man-made--and made badly--he > laughs the whole monstrosity to rubble. This > is a profoundly clever book, addressing the > most pressing social issue of our time, by > one of the finest writers in the > land." > > Sam Harris, author of the New York Times best > sellers, The End of Faith and > Letter to a Christian Nation
There's an interesting review of Hitchens's book here-- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-oppenheimer/hitchens-glaring- error_b_47480.html http://tinyurl.com/3baaag --by Mark Oppenheimer, a strong admirer of Hitchens. He is himself a religionist, but he believes "that religion needs to be held up to frequent ridicule, even parody. It needs to be exposed to the light of reason, where it will sometimes wither, even die." However, he says of Hitchens's book, "It is an intellectually shoddy and factually inaccurate rush-job, written with blithe ignorance of what his antagonists actually believe." He takes exception to a particularly egregious factual error Hitchens makes about Orthodox Judaism, one of many anti-Semitic slurs that have been around for a long time without any basis whatsoever in fact, something Hitchens could easily have checked out and found to be false. More generally, he writes: "Hitchens doesn't get religion, and he doesn't get religious people. His book is useful as a primer against fundamentalism and zealotry, but most religious people are neither fundamentalists nor zealots. The comparison I always make is to capitalism: unbridled, libertarian capitalism is quite dangerous, but a more moderated form of the market has been a great boon to humanity, and an inability to make the distinction is a sign of intellectual feebleness.... "Hitchens seems to have done none of the reading on religion that might have broadened his thinking--no Wittgenstein, no Rudolf Otto, none of the phenomenologists who help explain why thoughtful, even intellectual people may be religious. I expected better from Hitchens, and I expect better from the rest of us." If this critique is accurate, Sam Harris's rave blurb does not reflect well on him, to say the least. ==================================================== --- In [email protected], Sal Sunshine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Curtis, > They (Judy/Jim) are simply using you since Barry has been > AWOL for a few days--if they can't find someone to argue > with/slander, their lives have that much less meaning. Sal, I (and Jim too I suspect) criticize people when they say something that warrants criticism, not because I feel the need to argue. <snip> > Ignore them. Simply don't respond, ever, to their baiting. > I know it isn't easy, slander is never easy to ignore, but > it does get easier the more you do it. What an amazing bit of hypocrisy, considering the many times you've attacked me out of the blue (typically on the basis of some wild misconstruction of something I've said). Or do you mean to suggest that I should ignore your "slander" of me? Get real, Sal. The horse you're on here is way too high. ================================================== --- In [email protected], "shempmcgurk" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snip> > Like you, Judy, we all know what his real name is, first and > last. If you want to pick on someone who hides behind a fake > internet moniker, pick on me. You're a little confused, Shemp. Curtis is the guy picking on people who use handles, accusing them (or rather, nastily accusing one TMer who had taken a humorous shot at him) of "hiding behind a fake name." I've been *defending* the use of handles. ================================================== --- In [email protected], Peter <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hey, you guys leave Curtis alone. We hungout together > at MIU and he's quite "otay" in my book. If you > personally knew Curtis there's no way in the world you > guys would attack him or attempt to demean him. Even after he's gratuitously attacked and demeaned us. I see. Why am I not surprised? > He's one of the good guys. He really is. How odd that you assume your "good guy" standards are some kind of ultimate, and even odder that you figure your encomium should be enough to convince everyone else that there is no basis for ever criticizing Curtis. Think again, toots.
