<div>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:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/christopher_hitchens">http://www.thenation.com/directory/bios/christopher_hitchens</a></div>
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<p>Born in 1949 in Portsmouth, England, Hitchens received a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1970. </p></div>
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<div>Also, though Hitchens' critique of religious superstition and faith is unyielding, to state that he thinks "religion in general is <em><strong>nothing more</strong></em> 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."</div>
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<div>To quote Hitchens' from an article on "Huffington Post": </div>
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<div><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-hitchens/collision-is-religion-abs_b_326673.html">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-hitchens/collision-is-religion-abs_b_326673.html</a></div>
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<div>"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. </div>
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<div>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?)"<br>
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<div>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.<br>
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<div>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):</div>
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<div>Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring":</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwWL8Y-qsJg">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwWL8Y-qsJg</a></div>
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<div>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett<br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 10/31/09, <b class="gmail_sendername">Joe Campbell</b> <<a href="mailto:philosopher.joe@gmail.com">philosopher.joe@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
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<div>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. </div>
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<div>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!</div>
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<div>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! <br>
<br>Sent from my iPhone</div>
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<div><br>On Oct 26, 2009, at 10:10 PM, Selina Davis <<a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:selinadavis@hotmail.com" target="_blank">selinadavis@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><br> </div>
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<div>And here's the link to info about the movie: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.collisionmovie.com/" target="_blank"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.collisionmovie.com/" target="_blank">http://www.collisionmovie.com/</a></a> 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): <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2009/10/23/70483.aspx" target="_blank"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2009/10/23/70483.aspx" target="_blank">http://right-mind.us/blogs/blog_0/archive/2009/10/23/70483.aspx</a></a> <br>
<br>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? <br>
<br>- Selina<br> <br>
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Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:41:30 -0700<br>From: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:rforce2003@yahoo.com" target="_blank"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:rforce2003@yahoo.com" target="_blank">rforce2003@yahoo.com</a></a><br>
To: <a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="mailto:vision2020@moscow.com" target="_blank">vision2020@moscow.com</a></a><br>
Subject: [Vision2020] Local Media Celebrity<br><br>
<div style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: times new roman,new york,times,serif">fighting words<br>Faith No More<br>What I've learned from debating religious people around the world.<br>By Christopher Hitchens<br>
Posted Monday, Oct. 26, 2009, at 11:21 AM ET<br><br>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?)<br>
<br>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.<br>
<br>Continues at: <span><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.slate.com/id/2233586/" target="_blank"><a onclick="return top.js.OpenExtLink(window,event,this)" href="http://www.slate.com/id/2233586/" target="_blank">http://www.slate.com/id/2233586/</a></a></span><br>
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