Christopher Hitchens

Once someone starts banging on supporting warfare when its results are so unpredictable and always dirtier than anticipated [by it supporters], then I completely discount that person advocating it, unless a real case can be made such as the anti-Nazi case in WW II. Otherwise it's mad or opportunist. Take your pick really. For example the Falklands War was firstly Foreign Office incompetence followed by a total waste of human life. Better to have sent the Canberra down there and repatriated the Ex-pat Brits down there, IMO ...

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Hi George,

I have always regarded your posts as extremely respectful and full of human decency, which is a virtue many people should aspire to.  I mean that, as I read the Naim forum every day.

With regard to the point you make above, and noting that the padded cell is the loaction to share viewpoints - albeit sometimes controversial - I can't help but slightly challenge your point.  Yes, I agree, 'war' per se is wrong especially when the innocent end up dying, but I think it is going too far in dismissing a public intellectual because of one just one argument they've made.

One thing Christopher often said that I am in total agreement with is his challenging of theists who say 'love your enemies'.  That is wrong and that is suicidal.  I am sure many people when presented with moral dilemma of who to save in a crisis would put the other individuals in an order linked to their genetic relatedness and their ages (i.e. their child, their brother/sister, their mother/father).  Anything going against this is due to confounding variables.

I think Damon puts it so well that Christopher had the intellectual bravery to challenge people in an envrionment regarded as 'hostile territory' so his arguments could be criticised on turf outside of his own.  He always respected every faith he went to - wearing the necessary items of clothing, addressing the audience properly.

As a closing point, I am in total disagreement with William Lane Craig.  Total.  But must also add that I respect his skills as a debater immensely.  That is my concession, although I wish to challenge him with the following two questions:

Considering everything we have learnt in neuroscience over the last 150 years, and noting that every mental condition is a material change amongst our neurons in whatever way, how would he explain the soul?  This is considering for e.g. schizophrenia (on or off medication) and profound autism.

I know these are social constructs, but that is an aside as we all recognise individual differences in such behaviour

Regards,

Jon

"Whenever people are certain they understand our peculiar situation here on this planet, it is because they have accepted a religious Faith or a secular Ideology (Ideologies are the modern form of Faiths) and just stopped thinking."

-- Robert Anton Wilson

I think Hitch would have liked this one......

Dear Jon,

I hope that our different takes on CH does not spoil our rubbing along nicely!

When you started this thread, I did not want to come in too early and sit my quite different view on your thread, though eventually the topic did broaden sufficiently for me to want to comment. It makes for a more interesting world that we can hold different opinions and still manage to be pleasant to each other.

Also I have always believed that it is better to say nothing than simply bend with the wind and agree just for the sake of it when dealing with people most of whom I don't actually know well! There are topics which I think are not suitable for a public forum, however strong my views on the topic might be, so that if these topics come up, I almost always refrain from comment. Christopher Hitchens was almost a case in point, and it goes against my intuition to write negatively of someone only recently dead. Of course there are people whose recent death would not bring out this view, Drugs Barons, some Russian Oligarchs, for two examples, but mostly I leave philosophical types to their RIP without comment, but I do have very strong views on Warfare. Ask me if I would fight to defend [I am too old now though] the Country and I would have done so if there were a general call-up, but foreign adventures on the whim of politicians who stand zero chances of facing death as a the result of a political or empire building war seem to me to be where ploiticians are appealing to a venal streak of patriotism usual shown by those equally unlikely to suffer as a result. It is a populist and wrong thing in my view.

Warfare may become unavoidable, but it should never be approached lightly, or adopted as a course of action before every other opportunity to resolve the situation has been utterly exhausted. That is just my view, and may not be so widely shared for all that.

Best wishes from George 

You have a respectable philosophy George and even though our viewpoints on Christopher Hitchens are drastically opposed, I shake your hand in peace!

Jon

PS As sad as I am in Christopher Hitchens dying, I wouldn't have thought - during the years he was alive - that he'd have wished people to have said RIP once he's gone!  I suppose it is similar to an atheist disliking the definition of them being a 'nonbeliever in God'.  This implies within it that there is something faulty with them i.e. you SHOULD believe in God and atheists are people who are morally redundant pariahs.