[Vision2020] Local Media Celebrity

[Joe Campbell]

Good points, Ted. Certainly my comments were a bit hyperbolic. Perhaps.

I'll try to get back to this later but I did not mean to indicate that
neither Hichens nor Wilson has an interesting world view. My point was
only that each adopts a world view which is essentially disrespectful
of the other side. For instance, Hitchens thinks religion is OK --
except the supernatural aspect. Just take God out of the picture and
everything is just fine, is essentially what he's saying. That is not
going to foster an interesting discussion. Note I'm not claiming that
Hitchens is wrong. There are lots of interesting people who adopt that
same world view; likely most professional philosophers adopt that same
world view. I just don't see it bringing about any interesting
discussion other than: "Supernatural means superstitious." "No, it
doesn't."

Trust me, one annoying point about this debate is this is metaphysics!
When I tell people I am a metaphysician, they laugh. Yet if you
discuss your metaphysics as if it were about politics and well being,
then you can write a best seller! I'm just passing that along to those
who might want fame! There are a host of issues here that I wouldn't
even attempt to address in a single course, let along a book or a
movie. This is an oversimplification of philosophy. As a philosopher,
this kind of stuff drives me up the wall. But I understand that
philosophy is open to all, so in the end there is nothing wrong with
it other than creating the illusion that one is really doing
philosophy.

I'll have more to say but I don't think that you can have an
interesting, philosophical discussion if both parties find the other
view silly, or evil, or stupid, or dangerous. Better to talk about
some aspect of the debate upon which both sides agree and then try to
move from there. But what would that be, in this case? I have not read
Hichens but I did meet him and based on that conversation I came away
believing that both parties agree that Christianity = Conservative
Fundamentalism. Again, the conversation after that is not interesting
to me -- but I never said it wouldn't draw a crowd! Nor did I say it
wasn't a worthy conversation. Everyone is entitled to her own beliefs,
and to express them.

Best, Joe

On Sun, Nov 1, 2009 at 11:39 AM, Ted Moffett <starbliss at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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/
>>
>>
>> ________________________________