[Vision2020] Local Media Celebrity

[Ted Moffett]

Your comments about Christopher Hitchens are misleading.  For one thing, he
does have academic credentials, if the bio below from "The Nation" website
is correct, though I suppose the weight of these credentials can be
questioned.  It is well known Wilson received a Masters in Philosophy from
the U of I:

http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/christopher_hitchens

Born in 1949 in Portsmouth, England, Hitchens received a degree in
philosophy, politics and economics from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1970.
--------------------
Also, though Hitchens' critique of religious superstition and faith is
unyielding, to state that he thinks "religion in general is *nothing
more*than dangerous idiocy," is an oversimplifying generalization.
Hitchens
recognizes that religious cultural traditions have value, it appears, but he
sharply (and some would say intolerantly) criticizes "the superstitious and
the supernatural."

To quote Hitchens' from an article on "Huffington Post":

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-hitchens/collision-is-religion-abs_b_326673.html

"Instead, we are asked to believe that the essential problem was solved
about two-to-three thousand years ago, by various serial appearances of
divine intervention and guidance in remote and primitive parts of what is
now (at least to Westerners) the Middle East.

This absurd belief would not even deserve to be called quixotic if it had
not inspired masterpieces of art and music and architecture as well as the
most appalling atrocities and depredations. The great cultural question
before us is therefore this: can we manage to preserve what is numinous and
transcendent and ecstatic without giving any more room to the superstitious
and the supernatural. (For example, can one treasure and appreciate the
Parthenon, say, while recognizing that the religious cult that gave rise to
it is dead, and was in many ways sinister and cruel?)"
--------
His statement above, given my reading, indicates that he recognizes
religion gives expression to "what is numinous and transcendent and
ecstatic," that it has "inspired masterpieces of art and music and
architecture," but he is promoting the idea we can keep these valuable
aspects of religious experience and culture, without recourse to "the
superstitious and the supernatural," without the negative impacts of these
sorts of beliefs.

Regardless of Hitchens' academic credentials, in simple terms he has
expressed what has been in my life a central issue.  I find it impossible,
without lying to myself or others, to have certainty of belief in religious
propositions which evidence and reason indicate are highly questionable, yet
still discover that I experience, as Hitchens' phrased it, "what is numinous
and transcendent and ecstatic."  I experience the bliss of Bach (for
example, Bach's beautiful composition "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring") without
believing in Christianity, for example (though I prefer the electronic Wendy
Carlos "Switched on Bach" version):

Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwWL8Y-qsJg
------------------------------------------
Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett

On 10/31/09, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Mutally respectful discussion from Hitchens and Wilson? You haven't
> really followed the debate, have you. Hitchens thinks that fundamentalists
> like Wilson are dangerous idiots. He also thinks that ALL Christians are
> fundamentalists. Thus, religion in general is nothing more than dangerous
> idiocy.
>
>
> Wilson, of course, thinks that Christianity allows for slavery -- that some
> slavery is permissable -- and has written -- well, at least wrote part of
> since the original work was partly ripped if from a discredited academic
> source -- a revisionist history of American slavery, where it turns out that
> the best race relations in the country happened when we kept blacks in
> chains!
>
>
> This is not an academic debate -- they have exactly one MA between them.
> This is a circus, where difficult issues about religion are glossed over in
> favor of insulting generalizations. Of course, this kind of crap has always
> sold well!
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Oct 26, 2009, at 10:10 PM, Selina Davis <selinadavis at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> And here's the link to info about the movie:
> http://www.collisionmovie.com/ and a link to Pastor Wilson with Chris
> Hitchens for an hour on the nationally-syndicated Laura Ingraham Show today
> (haven't listened to it yet):
> http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2009/10/23/70483.aspx
>
> It's always intriguing when someone around here gains a degree of notoriety
> beyond our region.  Can we anticipate a showing and spirited (yet hopefully
> mutually respectful) discussion at the Nuart and/or Kenworthy sometime soon?
>
>
> - Selina
>
> ------------------------------
> Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:41:30 -0700
> From: rforce2003 at yahoo.com
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] Local Media Celebrity
>
> fighting words
> Faith No More
> What I've learned from debating religious people around the world.
> By Christopher Hitchens
> Posted Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, at 11:21 AM ET
>
> This week sees the opening on various cinema marquees of the film
> Collision: a buddy-and-road movie featuring last year's debates between
> Pastor Douglas Wilson, who is a senior fellow at New St. Andrew's College,
> and your humble servant. (If I may be forgiven, it's also available on DVD,
> and you can buy our little book of exchanges, Is Christianity Good for the
> World?)
>
> Newsweek's reviewer beseeches you not to go and see the film, largely on
> the grounds that it features two middle-aged white men trying to establish
> which one is the dominant male. I would have thought that this would be
> reason enough to buy a ticket, but perhaps she would have preferred the
> debate held in London last week featuring me and Stephen Fry (two
> magnificent specimens of white mammalhood) versus a female member of
> Parliament who is a Tory Catholic convert and the Roman Catholic archbishop
> of Abuja, Nigeria. It filled one of the largest halls in the city, and many
> people had to be turned away. For a combination of reasons, the subject of
> religion is back where it always ought to be—at the very center of any
> argument about the clash of world views.
>
> Continues at: http://www.slate.com/id/2233586/
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20091101/4af841af/attachment-0001.html