Why did so many people admire Christopher Hitchens?

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Yes, apologies for rambling about Dawkins. I’m afraid I do have a tendency for going off on a tangent when something pops into my mind! I hope the OP doesn’t mind… I almost went off on another tangent about Michael Moore, but luckily managed to rein that one in.

I am indeed originally from Liverpool, but spent much of my life in New Zealand before coming back to England a few years ago. I possibly paint Dawkins’s view of Anglicanism with too broad a brush, but my impression is that what he is fond of is the kind of Anglicanism he encountered at Oundle School in the 1950s. As you will know, there are many varieties of Anglicanism. I cannot imagine Dawkins feeling very much at home in some of the working-class parishes I am familiar with—priests in birettas and lace cottas, the Corpus Christi procession, the pilgrimage to Walsingham, mass-produced statues of Our Lady and the saints. Nor can I imagine him enjoying a visit to St Aldate’s in Oxford, where he will see people speaking in tongues and being slain in the Spirit, or nearby St Ebbe’s, where he will encounter dour fundamentalism.
 
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scousekiwi said:
Yes, apologies for rambling about Dawkins. I’m afraid I do have a tendency for going off on a tangent when something pops into my mind! I hope the OP doesn’t mind… I almost went off on another tangent about Michael Moore, but luckily managed to rein that one in.

I am indeed originally from Liverpool, but spent much of my life in New Zealand before coming back to England a few years ago. I possibly paint Dawkins’s view of Anglicanism with too broad a brush, but my impression is that what he is fond of is the kind of Anglicanism he encountered at Oundle School in the 1950s. As you will know, there are many varieties of Anglicanism. I cannot imagine Dawkins feeling very much at home in some of the working-class parishes I am familiar with—priests in birettas and lace cottas, the Corpus Christi procession, the pilgrimage to Walsingham, mass-produced statues of Our Lady and the saints. Nor can I imagine him enjoying a visit to St Aldate’s in Oxford, where he will see people speaking in tongues and being slain in the Spirit, or nearby St Ebbe’s, where he will encounter dour fundamentalism.
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Indeed. It’s a broad church.
 
scousekiwi said:
Nor can I imagine him enjoying a visit to St Aldate’s in Oxford, where he will see people speaking in tongues and being slain in the Spirit,
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For the life of me, I can’t picture any CoE Brit speaking in tongues nor being slayed in the spirit! 😂😂😂. I just can’t!
 
Pattylt said:
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scousekiwi:
Nor can I imagine him enjoying a visit to St Aldate’s in Oxford, where he will see people speaking in tongues and being slain in the Spirit,
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For the life of me, I can’t picture any CoE Brit speaking in tongues nor being slayed in the spirit! 😂😂😂. I just can’t!
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Here is Paula White (spritual advisor to Trump) speaking in tongues. As you say, is it conceivable that this could be done in an Oxbridge accent?

I’ll refrain from further comment…


But who on earth is that guy wandering about in the background?
 
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Pattylt said:
For the life of me, I can’t picture any CoE Brit speaking in tongues nor being slayed in the spirit!
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The present archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, claims to speak in tongues every day. I am told that the first Sunday that Charlie Cleverly was rector of St Aldate’s, Oxford, everybody in the first six rows was slain in the Spirit. The Alpha course, which is based at the very posh Holy Trinity Brompton (across the road from Harrods), includes a “Holy Spirit weekend” during which participants are invited to begin speaking in tongues.

Funnily enough, most of the people who are into this kind of thing in the Church of England seem to be rather posh types, often public school and Oxbridge. Nicky Gumbel, who is behind much of the charismatic renewal in the Church of England, was educated at Eton, has degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge, and was a barrister before he became a priest. Justin Welby was educated at Eton, Cambridge, and Durham and worked in the oil industry.
 
Imo it is because sometimes those who are 100% wrong about Christ and His Church are good orators/writers/etc and can become people of influence, taking people away from Christ and His Church wherein we find His true Body and Blood - which of course as we know is what they’re doing, whether they know it or not…

Of course, sometimes such people end up converting and JOINING His Church, which is always a great blessing! Among them we have the examples of Saul/Paul, biographer Joseph Pearce, former Planned Parenthood administrator Abby Johnson, Dr. Dawn Eden Goldstein, and G. K. Chesterton, and Oscar Wilde…just to name a few!

Note: some of these people were “just” atheists, and not necessarily and specifically anti-Catholicism.
 
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Hitchens was an outstanding orator, excellent writer, and skilled debater. Using that British accent, he could calmly articulate how the opposition’s argument was inferior at the drop of a hat. He had quick wit that would go for days…

In his debates, he did show philosophical holes, however, I wonder if that is more of the result of debate tactics, as opposed to not understanding the philosophy. When in a debate, his objective was to WIN.

He was a contrarian, I think sometimes he would enjoy picking the other side just for the sake of an argument!
 
IanAG said:
We each have a belief, an overarching worldview through which we navigate life, whether that is Christian theism or naturalism. Hitchens never publicly articulated his, probably because he was afraid to place it under the same scrutiny as he afforded religion.

How would he suggest the world be governed? How would he decide what is morally acceptable? What would give mankind not an individual but a unitive purpose? How would his ideas comfort the suffering? How would his approach help the poor, the imprisoned, the sick? And so on.

I just believe he was an intellectual vandal who could destroy a house with his rhetoric but had absolutely no idea how to build one.
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Here is a quote from Hitchens that sort of explains his view:
“Morality comes from us, religion claims to have invented it on our behalf. Then, ok, another example from the older testament: is it really to be believed that, until they got to the foot of Mt. Sinai, the followers of Moses believed that, up until then, adultery, murder, theft, and perjury were ok? They’re suddenly told, “Oh hey, we got some new ideas for you.” I don’t think so. It’s a bit of an insult to the ancient Jewish faith, of which Jacob and I are both rather disgraceful ornaments in our different ways. I think our ancestors were smarter than that and even if they weren’t smarter, they wouldn’t have got that far if they were under the contrary impression. The Golden Rule is something you don’t have to teach a child. There’s no need to say, “And if you don’t follow this rule, you’ll burn in hell forever.” That’s immoral teaching. Now I hope I’ve made myself clear. On the—but I’m wondering if I have because you face me, Reverend, with two very unwelcome thoughts: either I have been completely inarticulate in everything I’ve said this evening or you have misunderstood me”.
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I used to think atheists in general were bullies, but folks like @Freddy and @FiveLinden have put paid to that idea.

I do think Hitchens was a bully, and Dawkins as well. Their language wasn’t designed to bridge gaps of understanding, but to burn things down.
 
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I think all those writers (including Sam Harris) were using contempt as a rhetorical tool (‘flying spaghetti monster,’ etc.). They must have thought their arguments would be more forceful if they were dripping with contempt for and full of mockery of their opponents.
 
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In principle I fully agree with you.

Unfortunately in Liverpool (by which I mean the council area), where we used to live there are a dearth of non-religious schools. Given that schools can, quite openly and legally, practice religious discrimination it’s extremely common for new parents to attend church up to their child’s first birthday in order to get them baptised so they can get into a school of the parents choice. Below is a Humanists UK article that discusses the problem.

 
tomarin said:
I think all those writers (including Sam Harris) were using contempt as a rhetorical tool (‘flying spaghetti monster,’ etc.). They must have thought their arguments would be more forceful if they were dripping with contempt for and full of mockery of their opponents.
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May I hazard a guess and suggest that you haven’t read much of either of them. And the FSM is no less valid a rhetorical means to a problem than Russel’s teapot. A little more light hearted perhaps but valid none the less.
 
Pattylt said:
If you admired these traits in Trump, then you can understand why some atheists admired Hitchens. I don’t know if you admired Trump for these personality traits or not but plenty of his supporters did.

He was a contrarian. He was very intelligent. He was a good journalist and writer. He was scathing at his opposition. These tend to be traits that, if you agree with him (many didn’t), then you admired him for it.
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Hope we are not comparing Trump to Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens came onto the scene when Atheists were looking for leadership and he was able to provide some of that. He presented arguments and like most atheists, he spent his life trying to tell Christians how they all got it wrong.
 
Well I read a lot of all of them at one time. It’s been a while though.
 
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tomarin said:
Well I read a lot of all of them at one time. It’s been a while though.
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If it’s too long to remember then maybe you can Google a search for an example of Sam Harris using contempt as a rhetorical tool.
 
gam197 said:
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Pattylt:
If you admired these traits in Trump, then you can understand why some atheists admired Hitchens. I don’t know if you admired Trump for these personality traits or not but plenty of his supporters did.

He was a contrarian. He was very intelligent. He was a good journalist and writer. He was scathing at his opposition. These tend to be traits that, if you agree with him (many didn’t), then you admired him for it.
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Hope we are not comparing Trump to Christopher Hitchens. Hitchens came onto the scene when Atheists were looking for leadership and he was able to provide some of that. He presented arguments and like most atheists, he spent his life trying to tell Christians how they all got it wrong.
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Either only one group has it right or they all do indeed have it wrong (he went for Option 2).
 
He invented the ‘flying spaghetti monster’! Is there any better example of what I’m talking about than that? And ‘God is Not Great’ by Hitchens is incredibly contemptuous - he and Dawkins talk about religious believers as though they must be morons to believe what they do. It’s clearly not an effort to persuade believers to their point of view, but rather to mock and marginalize them in the eyes of people who find them silly but harmless.

Also I see no reason for you to be snide (‘if it’s been too long’).
 
tomarin said:
He invented the ‘flying spaghetti monster’!
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Obviously it has been too long. Harris had nothing to do with that: Flying Spaghetti Monster | Description, History, & Facts | Britannica

I thought you were going to use Google.

And I didn’t ask for anything that Hitch had said that was contemptuous because we’d have been here until the end of the year listing them. You’d be hard pressed to find something he said about religion that wasn’t dripping in contempt.
 
ForeverLearn said:
Here is a quote from Hitchens that sort of explains his view:

“Morality comes from us, religion claims to have invented it on our behalf. Then, ok, another example from the older testament: is it really to be believed that, until they got to the foot of Mt. Sinai, the followers of Moses believed that, up until then, adultery, murder, theft, and perjury were ok? They’re suddenly told, “Oh hey, we got some new ideas for you.” I don’t think so. It’s a bit of an insult to the ancient Jewish faith, of which Jacob and I are both rather disgraceful ornaments in our different ways. I think our ancestors were smarter than that and even if they weren’t smarter, they wouldn’t have got that far if they were under the contrary impression. The Golden Rule is something you don’t have to teach a child. There’s no need to say, “And if you don’t follow this rule, you’ll burn in hell forever.” That’s immoral teaching. Now I hope I’ve made myself clear. On the—but I’m wondering if I have because you face me, Reverend, with two very unwelcome thoughts: either I have been completely inarticulate in everything I’ve said this evening or you have misunderstood me”.
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That’s not a manifesto for how we will live without religion, it’s a polemic against religion, an attack which from my point of view shows an amazing level of naivety about the human condition.

Above which, it is factually incorrect and philosophically confused. The Bible has many stories of morality prior to Mt. Sinai…take for instance the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis…so it has never been claimed that there wasn’t some sense of morality prior to then. What was missing was an objective moral code. This article provides further answers far better than I can https://www.biola.edu/blogs/good-book-blog/2014/moral-duty-without-the-ten-commandments

Further, the atheist will frequently quote the golden rule as a good basis for morality. But this leaves an issue. If there is no objective morality why should I follow the golden rule when it disadvantages me? Further, by modern philosophical standards, the golden rule is not commonly viewed as an adequate basis of moral theory. The problem with the rule “treat others as you would like to be treated” is that it does not, and cannot, distinguish between the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ ways in which one might like to be treated

That’s the thing about anti theism, it’s simply an attack against religion without any coherent and overarching idea of what will replace it and how we will thrive together in its absence.
 
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