Hitchens destroys God

@neologist,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZpYMr-Ed0Q

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@neologist,

I can understand being turned off by YouTube by all of the crap that's uploaded onto it, but if you have not heard Christopher Hitchens speak you are missing out. He is arguably the most intelligent, eloquent, entertaining, and hard-hitting atheists on YT. His numerous debates, television, and radio appearances are very captivating.

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@Chumly,

"...the main reason for this is that I think it is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchangeable, tyrannical authority, who can convict you of thought crime while you are asleep, who must indeed subject you to a total surveillance, around the clock, every waking and sleeping minute of your life, before you''re born and, where the real fun begins, after your dead. A celestial North Korea... but at least you can f***ing die and leave North Korea."

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I forced myself to sit through that 10-minute vid without nodding off, but i needn't have wasted my time, Hitchens wove together a typical halfbaked atheistic tangled furball based on the Old Testament, and then puked it up at us!
For example he mistakenly thinks God cares about circumcision, the sabbath, what we eat blah blah. (yawn).
Obviously he never heard of this New T verse-
"The covenant of which Jesus is mediator is superior to the old one" (Heb 8:6)
Or else he HAD heard of it but prefererred to pretend he hadn't so that he could go on peddling his outdated OT propaganda.. Wink

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@Romeo Fabulini,

4 paragraphs down from your citation...

Quote:

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

(Heb 8:10)

Romeo, it looks tough if you aren't from the house of Israel. But of course you can select which verses you want to ignore ! Smile

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Quote:

Fresco said: "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people"(Heb 8:10)
Romeo, it looks tough if you aren't from the house of Israel. But of course you can select which verses you want to ignore !

I don't know what you're getting at mate, it's self-evident that the OT was not enough, or God wouldn't have needed to send Jesus to give us a new one.. Smile

And as long as the Jews accept Jesus they've got nothing to worry about!

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@Romeo Fabulini,

The point is that Hitchens did NOT particularly cite the OT. That was a straw man you selectively set up. And if you are going to rely on your self selected "authoritative text" to attempt rebut Hitchens, that text becomes fair game for demolition by your own tactic of selectivity.

In addition, at a secondary level of analysis, it now well understood that the meaning of any text cannot be divorced from the socio-historical context in which it was written. To assert that "holy writ" is an exception to that fact is merely to beg the question of its "divine origin". Hitchens argues that the assumption of "a divinity" is neither necessary nor desirable given what we know about human knowledge and behavior.

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@fresco,

fresco, schooling Romeo wrote:

4 paragraphs down from your citation...

Quote:
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
(Heb 8:10)

Romeo, it looks tough if you aren't from the house of Israel. But of course you can select which verses you want to ignore !

Sorry if Romeo didn't give it all. Actually, the Old Covenant of natural Israel was replaced by the New Covenant. As Paul pointed out: "For he is not a Jew who is one on the outside, nor is circumcision something on the outside, on the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one on the inside, and his circumcision is that of the heart by spirit and not by a written code. . . " (Romans 2: 28,29)

A new nation of Israel. No restrictions on nationality or race. (Acts 10:34)

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@neologist,

Paul was a great salesman in the context of the diverse "citizenship" of the Roman Empire. Monotheism without (the fertility rite of) circumcision ! Mohammed obviously didn't need to make that offer. Smile

http://www.iranchamber.com/culture/articles/rituals_of_circumcision.php

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@fresco,

Don't follow Mo
So wouldn't know

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@neologist,

...nor do I. But maybe accidents of location of one's birth should not delimit our understanding of the arbitrary nature of religion.

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@fresco,

One might expect that the true God would eventually even out all the injustices folks have experienced by accident of birth, time, and unforeseen circumstances.

And so it is promised:

(John 5:28, 29) Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, and those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.

(Revelation 21:3,4) "Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them. 4 And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”

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@neologist,

neologist wrote:

And so it is promised...

... by an arbitrary reverence resulting from an accidental location of birth...

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@rosborne979,

...or even John's accidental access to the magic mushrooms on Patmos ! Wink

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Ah, shrooms . . . haven't done those in years . . . decades . . . sigh . . .

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@Romeo Fabulini,

Quote:

"The covenant of which Jesus is mediator is superior to the old one" (Heb 8:6)

Are you saying your omniscient, omnipotent, & omnipresent God got it wrong in the Old Testament. So this omniscient and extremely moral God got it wrong when she thought slavery, genocide, and infanticide were acceptable in O. Test. How would an omniscient God make a mistake like that? How would an omniscient being make any mistakes at all? This God is sounding awfully human to me. I think rather than us being made in God's image, we created God in our image.

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Quote:

Fresco said: The point is that Hitchens did NOT particularly cite the OT. That was a straw man you selectively set up

Again, I don't see what you're getting at mate?
For example Jesus says in the New Testament- "Love one another, feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the destitute, tend the sick, visit the prisoners, look after the poor" (Mark 12:30, John 13:34, Matt 25: 37-40)
So when Hitchens says stuff in that vid like "The Bible is a peril to civilisation", I can only assume he's conning his audience by selecting harsh bits from the Old Testament to prop up his claims, and he should get on the naughty step because Jesus trumps the OT.. Smile

"In the past God overlooked such ignorance" (Acts 17:30)

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Quote:

Romeo said: "The covenant of which Jesus is mediator is superior to the old one" (Heb 8:6)
Jpsy replied: Are you saying your omniscient, omnipotent, & omnipresent God got it wrong in the Old Testament

He gave humans FREE WILL to do as they please, so when the ancient primitive tribes got out of hand he had to do some slapping around to get their attention and respect like a strict schoolteacher.. Smile

Likewise, when Riker joined Klingon vessel Pagh on an exchange visit as 1st Officer he had to punch and throw stroppy Klingon 2nd Officer Klag across the bridge to get the attention and respect of him and the rest of the crew.
When God felt the time was right to package himself in a softer way to more advanced peoples, he gave us Jesus who came not to abolish the OT wholesale, but to show us how to apply its rules with enlightened goodnatured commonsense-
"The law brought us to Christ like a schoolmaster,but now through Christ we are not under that schoolmaster" (Gal 3:22-25)
Right Klag?

"Grrrr..."

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g64/PoorOldSpike/klagB.gif

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@Romeo Fabulini,

I suggest that you won't see what Hitchens is "getting at" because your self integrity is predicated on a particular concept of a "God". i.e An attack on your "God" is an attack on "you". Your "healthy interest in Christianity" indicates your mental investment in such a position.
The point Hitchens makes about the altruism of religions is that it is an insult to our humanity and intelligence to assume that the origins such concepts is "divine" and has not been arrived at by secular social interactions or genetic propensities.

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@Romeo Fabulini,

I suggest that you won't see what I am "getting at" because your self integrity is predicated on a particular concept of a "God". i.e A perceived attack on your "God" is an attack on "you". Your "healthy interest in Christianity" indicates your mental investment in such a position.
The point Hitchens makes about the altruism of religions is that it is an insult to our humanity and intelligence to assume that the origins such concepts is "divine" and has not been arrived at by secular social interactions or genetic propensities.

1 Reply

Hitchens destroys God

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