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Christopher Hitchens: Godlessness Is Not Great — How Atheism Poisons Everything
The New American ^ | Monday, 19 December 2011 | Selwyn Duke

Posted on 12/20/2011 9:15:48 AM PST by Paladins Prayer

In writing this piece, I’m reminded of a little exchange between the late William F. Buckley and friend and fellow National Review writer Florence King. Buckley had just penned some less-than-flattering words about a recently deceased person of prominence whose name escapes me, and King chided him, saying something to the effect that he had broken ground in journalism: the “attack-obit.” Buckley’s response was, “Wait till you see the obituary I have planned for you!”

And in writing this critical article about bon vivant Christopher Hitchens in the wake of his death this past Thursday, I expect some ridicule as well. Yet I don’t think Hitchens would demand to be spared the acidic ink he used to eviscerate others — or that he would have any credibility doing so. Remember that this was the man who, before the gentle Jerry Falwell’s body was even cold, said things such as “If he [Falwell] had been given an enema, he could have been buried in a matchbox” and “I wish there was a Hell for Falwell.”

For my part, I wouldn’t wish eternal damnation on Hitchens; I truly hope he rests in peace. But I can’t say the same for his legacy. And when I see the obligatory exaltation of his life’s work — with secular icons, the deader they get, the better they were — I think that legacy needs a little damnation.

(Excerpt) Read more at thenewamerican.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: atheism; death; gagdadbob; hitchens; onecosmosblog; religion
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To: A_perfect_lady

Emmanuel means God with us - he lived it and was referred to even indirectly as such on His death by the Roman guards.

Analysis on the 4 gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John indicates that each one must have been written last - so yes an impossible conclusion that can only indicate the hand of God.

There is enough commonality and yet uniqueness in each of these eyewitness accounts to be held up as factual evidence in a modern day court of law - and they usually only require 2 or 3 credible witnesses. See the small paperback book “More Than a Carpenter” by Josh McDowell - I DARE YOU!!!

But it’s not easy to tell a know-it-all teacher where they are wrong...


181 posted on 12/23/2011 12:06:34 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: A_perfect_lady

Would not matter if I had - it is you who needs to go back and read and research - FR is only a discussion forum. I don’t think you want me to assume the role of your teacher...


182 posted on 12/23/2011 12:12:17 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: BrandtMichaels
Oh that is the biggest line of BS I have heard yet. Look, you need to come out of fantasy land. He was not called Emmanuel, his mother was not a virgin, he didn't come back from the dead, he didn't rule Israel, and he didn't come back and establish a kingdom of God in their lifetime. His followers scattered until it was safe and then a handful of them told their stories. They added some "miracles" and a whole bunch of threats and promises. The Catholic Church edited it till they were satisfied with it, and now suckers like you believe it and go around threatening the rest of us that if we don't believe it too we are going to hell. You aren't scaring me, you aren't convincing me, you're just irritating me. Now quit nagging me with your fairy stories. It's a NO SALE.
183 posted on 12/23/2011 12:15:36 PM PST by A_perfect_lady
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To: A_perfect_lady

Not as long as you continue playing fast and loose with the truth.

APL: “No, there is not much correlation between the archaeological record and the Bible. They both agree that there was a flood, but the Bible isn’t the only place that information was recorded.”
-The other flood accounts [see http://shipsonstamps.org/Topics/html/arche.htm ] have a lot more in common that different so how would you know if they did not all originate from the same account?

APL: “Any prophecies Jesus’ life seems to fulfill is because his disciples changed the details of his life to fit the descriptions as best they could after his death.”
-If they tried to change details to fit their story all the other critics and budding believers would have utterly destroyed the credibility needed.

“He shall be called Emmanuel”
-See Crosswalk.com and search, it will give you hundreds of [both old and new] direct references to this name.

APL: “Yeah, they called him that all the time! Sure!”
-Both God and Jesus are given lots of different names titles and references [apparently just to confuse you - sarc]

APL: “He shall be born of a virgin.”
-The account is factual imho b/c this is an article of faith that neither of us can truly resolve. An omnipotent God can do anything he pleases - even suspend the motion of the solar system for any length of time.

APL: “He shall be born in Bethlehem.”
-How is that not a given? We have evidence and also why they fled Israel due to Herod and why they returned to a different town - as he was known as a Nazarene! Grew up there from 7 years on iirc. See Micah 5:2 written centuries before - the town name appears over 40 times in the old testament and 8 in the new - you can check all these scriptures using crosswalk.com to search the Bible - heck I even entered a partially remembered phrase into other search engines and find the actual wording or in some cases the error - God has never said “this too shall pass” not ‘the Lord helps those who help themselves” they are just trite little sayings the culture repeats until people begin to think it so.

APL: ‘She was 9 months pregnant and ...’
Yes, when she delivered the baby - does not say specifically how long the journey of approx 70 miles took due to the decree of an evil King Herod - this is fulfilled prophecy again showing God knowing all these events from beginning to end before any had transpired. In Moses day the Egyptian Pharoah was used by God to fulfill prophecies.

+You do know of course that there were several different Kings in and around Jesus time named Herod - proven again by the archaeological records.

APL: “He shall rise again.”
YES He did! Of course, they didn’t ‘immediately’ recognize him -
Luke 24:15 Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; 16 but they were kept from recognizing him...

25 He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself...

30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 32 They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?

APL: “Some of you will not taste death until the Kingdom of God comes”
-Au contraire I say still true and neither of us can prove that one either. No mere mortal could ever prove a future prophecy.

APL - [your words rephrased from my perspective]:
Look if you want to believe in all this ‘by mere chance all things’ nonsense, you go right ahead. I know people who believe as I do and we are commanded to defend our faith. But I am not selling it to you. You have free will and I am happy to try to please my Lord by following his decrees - to give a defense for why we believe.

You can keep all your money - the research is easy enough to do most of it right there at your computer.


184 posted on 12/23/2011 1:12:30 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: A_perfect_lady

Because some of the things you say are future prophecies to be fulfilled at His second coming. The 1st set of prophecies are call lamb prophecies - as in Christ the sacrificial lamb - the others are called lion prophecies when He returns to overthrow sin, and to establish his millenial kingdom.


185 posted on 12/23/2011 1:16:59 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: A_perfect_lady

I’ve posted no threats - you are just plain wrong.


186 posted on 12/23/2011 1:18:34 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: Notary Sojac; BrandtMichaels; Alamo-Girl; xzins; metmom; YHAOS; Matchett-PI; Mind-numbed Robot
... if the state can dictate how one may worship God, what can it not dictate?

The logic of this statement is irrefutable, dear Notary Sojac!

But if any State were so foolhardy as to conceive that it really had the "power" to command individual conscience, that state would be "illegitimate" by definition, even insane. For such a State has transgressed a firm bound of reality, which stipulates that States are creatures of men, not of Nature; thus men, being "natural-born," so to speak, cannot be "creatures of the State." (For "Nature" comes first. :^) )

Men are (to use Christian terminology comfortably familiar to the Framers), creatures of God, and such creatures! — for alone of all beings in the natural (created) world, they were "made" in His Image. Which is why the Framers held as "self-evident" the proposition that such creatures are "naturally" possessed of divinely endowed, thus inalienable, sovereign, "equal" rights as unique individual persons. As to the constitutional hierarchy of power, We the People come first: Under the constitutional system the Framers gave us, We the People are the Principals; the government (i.e., the state) is our Agent.

The point is agents do not give instructions to their principals; they execute instructions received from their principals, a "higher source" — which can readily be apprehended by viewing the Preamble to the U. S. Constitution.

Under the (arguably Christian) understandings that underlay the purpose and design of the U.S. Constitution, for the agent to start telling the principal what to do — to "command his conscience," as it were, or at least bring it into conformity with State plans through coercive methods if need be — would be living, de facto, direct evidence of profound illegitimacy in the order of the State. The nightmare of a stalking, all-powerful, wholly unprincipled Leviathan then comes to mind.... So far at least, only in my nightmares....

Thomas Hobbes, philosopher and amazingly fecund political thinker — envisioned this "beast," which he named Leviathan. It is civil government at the lowest common denominator: in which human persons willingly, routinely, sacrifice their "liberty" for "safety" understood as something the State can provide them with in the first place. Little do they suspect that the State itself is a main source of disorder which leads to conditions of "un-safety" in our communities. Which dangers, of course, the State promises to remediate. :^)

Talk about a "zero-sum game" for human beings! Don't blame the Lord for making your life miserable, or even for condemning you — blame your fellow man instead!

But enuf of that for now. Turning to another point you raised, the absolute dependency of the United States of America on the "separation of Church and State."

Given the above discussion, I don't think such a thing is necessary or even do-able. I don't see how it can be a "problem," since the unity of order and spirit seems so universal to the way men practically think and act. It's like a demand for the "separation" of body and psyche in man....

A problem for another time perhaps.

At this point, on this question I'd like us to remember two of the most powerful promulgators and defenders of the American "doctrine" of separation of Church and State: Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) and Roger Williams (c. 1603 – 1683).

Since Roger came first, let's do him first.

Roger Williams was a Puritan minister who was banished from my home state Massachusetts, on pain of execution, should he ever return to the Commonwealth. And all this because he was absolutely, unabashedly, uncompromisingly "on political record" as opposing any consolidation of Church and State. Above all, he was concerned about the primacy and dignity of individual conscience in discerning man's relations to God, man (self and other), world, and society....

Of course, the folks of Massachusetts at that time were engaged in doing precisely that: Winthrop's "shining city on a hill" would be instantiated in an established State Church in Massachusetts.

Probably Williams would have died on the Cross before his conscience would have approved/permitted such a thing as a "consolidation" of Church and State. And his reasoning on this topic is most instructive: He as much as said (paraphrasing), we know that states, being human constructions, are bound to "err," to "fall off the tracks" of the Good — as if they were subject to some law of "inverted moral gravity."

AND SO — there should never, ever be any consolidation of Church and State, on grounds that the State could only "corrupt" the Church!!!

In short, Roger Williams envisioned the separation of Church and State as a profound moral problem, which recognizes that one can't get to Truth if one is following an immoral path....

Thomas Jefferson — probably the truest exemplar of Enlightenment thinking of all the Framers — was (I think) trying to get around the "moral problem" by "reducing" its resolution to more comprehensive, abstract principles that did not depend on direct human experience for their verification. Which is to say, the "separation of Church and State" was, for Jefferson, a matter of political policy, on "technical" and mass "social" grounds.

Well, whatever you think about these problems, dear Notary Sojac — and I'd love to hear more — I've got to stop for now, and simply wish you and all your dear ones:

A very merry and blessed Christmas, and a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year!!!

187 posted on 12/23/2011 2:03:56 PM PST by betty boop (We are led to believe a lie when we see with, and not through, the eye. — William Blake)
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To: BrandtMichaels
No, the threats are embedded in the religion: believe or go to Hell. I don't like it, I won't have it, and you won't shove it down my throat. No sale. Not ever. Type your little heart out if you want, but I'm not going to "research" a bunch of hear-say from 2000 years ago that has been carefully edited and shaped by the Catholic Church.

No Sale.

188 posted on 12/23/2011 3:26:06 PM PST by A_perfect_lady
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To: BrandtMichaels
And by the way, as I said to another poster, you shouldn't even be TRYING to prove anything to me. If you can prove it, it's not faith, it's knowledge. It's supposed to be faith. You're supposed to accept it because you WANT to.

You're trying to shove it down my throat like medicine. You need to stop. If I don't want it, I don't want it.

189 posted on 12/23/2011 3:31:08 PM PST by A_perfect_lady
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To: A_perfect_lady

If anyone could know for sure why would anyone need faith? There are many denominations and religions but you will not be held accountable for them. You will be held accountable for you.

There is something very different and very special about the Bible. It is not a collection of stories; it contains historical information that is verifiable. It contains prophesies that have come true. And it includes prophesies that are coming true right before our eyes. Additionally, it has impacted the world in deep and lasting ways more than any other written text. And yet you call it sound and fury which signifies nothing.

Who is Jesus Christ? There are only three possible answers: 1) a liar, 2) a madman, 3) The Son of God.

You may not believe in Him but He believes in you.


190 posted on 12/23/2011 3:48:24 PM PST by killermosquito (Buffalo, Detroit (and eventually France) is what you get when liberalism runs its course.)
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To: Just mythoughts

It is certain that Mr Hitchens now knows whether he was right or wrong. He may have repented; I hope so but it seem unlikely that he would do so after becoming so well known for atheism.

You seem to be under the impression that hell does not presently exist. Have you considered Mark 9:43-48?


191 posted on 12/23/2011 4:27:44 PM PST by killermosquito (Buffalo, Detroit (and eventually France) is what you get when liberalism runs its course.)
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To: A_perfect_lady

per wikipedia re ~ Significance to the Canon of the Bible

The significance of the [Dead Sea] scrolls relates in a large part to the field of textual criticism and how accurately the Bible has been transcribed over time. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible were Masoretic texts dating to 10th century CE such as the Aleppo Codex.

The biblical manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls push that date back a millennium to the 2nd century BCE. Before this discovery, the earliest extant manuscripts of the Old Testament were in Greek in manuscripts such as Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1209 and Codex Sinaiticus.


The Bible record was complete within less than 100 years after Christ. The Catholic church has been in existence since about 300 AD. BTW I feel compelled to reply and/or post when fact-checking fails.


192 posted on 12/23/2011 4:29:14 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: A_perfect_lady

Oh you must be the exception then too. If I just accepted all of my Christian beliefs purely on faith, with no investigation, no facts then the atheists on FR would have a field day.


193 posted on 12/23/2011 4:41:45 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: betty boop; Notary Sojac; BrandtMichaels; Alamo-Girl; xzins; metmom; Matchett-PI; ...
But if any State were so foolhardy as to conceive that it really had the "power" to command individual conscience, that state would be "illegitimate" by definition, even insane.

With that remark you disqualify 52 states around the globe (perhaps more) both for legitimacy and sanity. On top of that, approx 30% of our own population would like to add America to that List of Infamy (and who knows how many more nations of Europe).

For such a State has transgressed a firm bound of reality, which stipulates that States are creatures of men, not of Nature; thus men, being "natural-born," so to speak, cannot be "creatures of the State." (For "Nature" comes first)

Yup. That’s the reasoning.

A very merry and blessed Christmas, and a happy, healthy, prosperous New Year!!!

Yes, to all. And as a little fellow named Tim observed a long time ago (or so the story goes), “God bless us . . . everyone.”

194 posted on 12/23/2011 5:03:52 PM PST by YHAOS (you betcha!)
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To: BrandtMichaels; killermosquito

I don’t need saving. I live a perfectly decent and respectable life. I do my job, I pay my bills, I obey the law, I don’t litter, and I take care of my cats. I’ll always do no less and I will never do any more. If that is not enough, screw it. And now I am really done with this conversation. I will never ask forgiveness from some figment of your imagination for my unimaginable nerve in having been born human. If there’s a God, my only thought about him is that he needs to take better care of his creatures. But likely there is not one, and that is why this world is as it is. That was my opinion 20 years ago, that was my opinion when this thread began, that is my opinion despite the writings of all the ambitious young men of Judea, that is my opinion despite the editing of the ambitious men of Rome, and nothing you ever say will change it. We atheists cannot be bullied into your dogma. Live with it.


195 posted on 12/23/2011 7:13:08 PM PST by A_perfect_lady
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To: BrandtMichaels

The funny thing about this silly broad “A Perfect lady” is that she has repeatedly said that she’s “done” and that she finds people irritating and just wants to be left alone, but she’s still here. Sheesh, get lost already.

It’s amazing how powerful that female desire to get in the “last word” is.


196 posted on 12/23/2011 10:13:11 PM PST by Paladins Prayer
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To: Paladins Prayer

Well at least the last time it was presented more as opinion than some more crazy ‘facts’.

Plus I think there must be some doubt otherwise why ask all the questions - at one point even getting upset that I didn’t answer them in my very next post.


197 posted on 12/23/2011 11:21:21 PM PST by BrandtMichaels
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To: betty boop
Betty --

I wish I had the time to respond in detail to your well researched and well written posts. However, my schedule this week as well as the holiday has my online time limited to only a few minutes.

I don't think that I ever used the words "separation of church and state". And if I did, it would certainly be in the way Jefferson thought of the concept rather than the way that, say, Richard Dawkins does.

What I was trying to get at is this: for 1300+ years, Christianity had a position of unchallenged dominance throughout Europe. Yet it was only in the aftermath of the Thirty Years War and the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that we began to see individual liberty of conscience become a value which societies felt obliged to respect.

This leads me to the conclusion that even if a Judeo-Christian culture is necessary for liberty to thrive, that culture is not in itself sufficient.

Opening up the question: what is the required additive??

And a blessed Christmas to you and yours...

NS

198 posted on 12/24/2011 8:08:19 AM PST by Notary Sojac (Liberalism: Ideas so good, they have to be mandatory!!)
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To: killermosquito
Who is Jesus Christ? There are only three possible answers: 1) a liar, 2) a madman, 3) The Son of God.

The trilemma is as shopworn an argument as is Pascal's wager, and likewise has been successfully disputed a score of times.

I know you can do better than that.

199 posted on 12/24/2011 8:12:28 AM PST by Notary Sojac (Liberalism: Ideas so good, they have to be mandatory!!)
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To: A_perfect_lady
As a fellow atheist I welcome your support on this and other threads, but may I suggest that getting visibly ticked off by the evangelicals doesn't help the effort?

There are a few fundamentalists here whom I simply refuse to respond to, because we just wind up insulting each other to no avail.

200 posted on 12/24/2011 8:16:16 AM PST by Notary Sojac (Liberalism: Ideas so good, they have to be mandatory!!)
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