Free Republic

“I love all religions. … If people become better Hindus, better Muslims, better Buddhists by our acts of love, then there is something else growing there.” Or in another place, “All is God — Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, etc., all have access to the same God.” We see, then, that Mother Teresa held beliefs that contradict many Biblical principles. Chief among these principles is that Christ is the only means of salvation. In John 14:6 Jesus states, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” By teaching that all religion could...

Did you miss it? Last month the country celebrated national Blasphemy Day! According to NPR.com, atheists marked Blasphemy Day last month at gatherings around the world, celebrating the freedom to denigrate and insult religion. Activities included de-baptizing people with hair dryers and an art exhibit in Washington, D.C., which showed, among other titles, Jesus Paints His Nails, in which "an effeminate Jesus after the crucifixion [applies] polish to the nails that attach his hands to the cross." The atheist group Center for Inquiry hosted the exhibit. Addressing a capacity crowd at the University of Toronto, columnist Christopher Hitchens elicited enthusiastic...

Many years ago, I went to the Central Lobby of the Houses of Parliament in London to keep an appointment with the almost picturesquely reactionary Conservative politician Alan Clark. He was the son of Kenneth (later Lord) Clark—the art historian and author of the Civilisation series—and the heir to Saltwood Castle, in Kent. He was also the author of a 1961 book, The Donkeys, which was a history of the British General Staff in the First World War. The title came from a famous comment that had supposedly been made at that epoch by a German military strategist. Told by...

Christopher Hitchens: 'It would be like giving someone an Oscar in the hope that he would someday make a good motion picture' In his unique and witty style Vanity Fair Columnist Christopher Hitchens drives Hardball's Chris Matthews crazy as they discuss the legitimacy of Barack Obama winning the Noble Peace Prize. This link takes you to the article as well as the video of Christopher Hitchens on Hardball.

"Living in the Islamic Republic," wrote Azar Nafisi in her book Reading Lolita in Tehran in 2003, "is like having sex with a man you loathe." This verdict has gathered extra force and pungency as the succeeding years have elapsed and as more women have been stoned, hanged, beaten, raped, and silenced. Lately has come the news that Iranian men in prison are being raped, too, for trying to exercise their right to vote. And now the U.S. government has come to a point where it must ask itself: What is it like to enter negotiations with a man who...

See Part I of my NewsReal Sunday discussion of Friday night's interview between Bill Maher and Sam Harris on Real Time. Leftist comedian Bill Maher just can't help being a jackass even toward people he respects. You'd think that if anyone could get him to at least attempt to grasp the value in the religious experience it would be believers who share his "progressive" political faith: Maher: I have unending respect for Bill Moyers. He's a brilliant man. He's also a Baptist minister. Jimmy Carter, y'know, a pretty bright guy. How do we reconcile someone who is so intelligent but...

I wonder sometimes whether the Nixon tapes really will just continue to be the gift that never stops giving. I was in college when Richard Milhous Nixon was first elected president, and I can still remember the profound sense of loathing and disgust that I experienced at the mere sight, let alone the sound, of him and of his most especially repellent sidekick Henry Kissinger. Wiser and older people tell you that the passions of your youth will dry up and that a more sere and autumnal condition will overtake you as maturity advances, but the thought of the Nixon...

It was a crudely stage-managed insult to everyone involved. By Christopher Hitchens For a flavor of the political atmosphere in Tehran, Iran, last week, I quote from a young Iranian comrade who furnishes me with regular updates: I went to the last major Ahmadinejad rally and got the whiff of what I imagine fascism to have been all about. Lots of splotchy boys who can't get a date are given guns and told they're special. It's hard to better this, either as an evocation of the rancid sexual repression that lies at the nasty core of the "Islamic republic" or...

What connects Obama's pronouncements on head scarves and the argument over released Guantanamo detainees? ___ Nothing prepared me for the way in which the authorities at the camp have allowed the most extreme religious cultists among the inmates to be the organizers of the prisoners' daily routine. Suppose that you were a secular or unfanatical person caught in the net by mistake; you would still find yourself being compelled to pray five times a day (the guards are not permitted to interrupt), to have a Quran in your cell, and to eat food prepared to halal (or Sharia) standards. I...

A video of a debate held at a leading Christian Book Expo on the topic of the existence of God can be found at THIS LINK. The panelists are: Christopher Hitchens -- an erudite, outspoken atheist Lee Strobel -- former atheist who has become a noted Christian apologist. William Lane Craig -- Professor of Philosophy at Talbot School of Theology Douglas Wilson -- Pastor of Christ Church, Moscow Idaho Jim Dennison -- Theologian in Residence, Baptist General Convention of Texas Be advised the video is almost two hours long. Also be advised it is a fascinating philosophical exchange. Enjoy /Zak

This past Shabbat my family and I hosted Rabbi and Mrs. Nachman Holtzberg, parents of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, the head of Chabad in Mumbai who was brutally murdered with his wife Rivkah. You'd think that a family that watched their son and daughter-in-law slaughtered on TV by Islamic terrorists would feel hatred and a desire for revenge. But what this saintly father asked of our many guests was simply their participation in rebuilding Chabad of Mumbai so that his son's selfless work would continue. What a shame Christopher Hitchens did not join us. It might have dissuaded him from penning...

<p>Look on the bright side: This’ll make for one hell of a Slate column once he gets back.</p> <p>I can only assume they didn’t recognize him, as the opportunity to scalp one of the world’s foremost atheists surely would have been irresistible.</p>

For example, Dr Eugenie Scott of the staunchly anticreationist National Center for Science Education (NCSE) revealed their agenda when she said: “ … I would describe myself as a humanist or a nontheist. I have found that the most effective allies for evolution are people of the faith community. One clergyman with a backward collar is worth two biologists at a school board meeting any day! … What we [such clergy and atheists] have in common is that we want to see evolution taught in the public schools … .”4

Boulder, CO, Jan 28, 2009 / 12:05 am (CNA).- Writers Dinesh D’Souza and Christopher Hitchens brought their polemics on religion and atheism to a debate Monday evening at the University of Colorado at Boulder before a sold-out crowd of 2,050 in the campus’ Macky Auditorium. D’Souza, a Catholic and author of the book “What’s So Great about Christianity,” argued that Christianity is the foundation for many common values such as scientific inquiry and respect for the individual. Additionally, he asserted that Christianity proposes the best answer for bridging the chasm between man and God.

Don't Let the Mullahs Run Out the Clock Obama must talk directly to the Iranian people. It's strange how some totalitarian types feel the urge to be blunt and honest, even almost confessional. I call as my witness the senior member of the Robert Mugabe coterie who was quoted in the New York Times on Feb. 11 concerning the sham swearing-in of Morgan Tsvangirai as prime minister of Zimbabwe. After the ceremony, according to Celia W. Dugger's report: [A] veteran ZANU-PF official who belongs to the party's politburo said of Mr. Tsvangirai, speaking on the understanding that he would not...

In January 2009, ICR received a copy of a recent ministry letter published by television personality Dr. John Ankerberg. For many years, Dr. Ankerberg has skillfully tackled tough issues related to the church, society, the Middle East, and other topics of interest to believers. Christians everywhere need to be informed, challenged, and also taught sound doctrine—there is no substitute for the Bible. However, the January letter from Dr. Ankerberg’s television ministry reveals a dangerous trend toward subjugating the accuracy, understandability, and authority of the Bible to the foolish musings of men—namely, scientists who deny that God’s revelation in the book...

Christopher Hitchens, a British journalist, schools Maher about Iran. Apparently things aren't all Bu$hitler's fault after all http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HECI4QK_mXA&fe Foul language warning, but still great. Maher just looks so dejected by the end of the clip

Two leading civil rights groups plan to file lawsuits Tuesday against the Bush administration over its domestic spying program.... The Center for Constitutional Rights plans to sue on behalf of four lawyers at the center and a legal assistant there who work on terrorism-related cases at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,... Similarly, the plaintiffs in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit include five Americans who work in international policy and terrorism, along with the A.C.L.U. and three other groups.... One of the A.C.L.U. plaintiffs, Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, ... Also named as plaintiffs in the A.C.L.U. lawsuit are the journalist...

Dear Christopher, I was dismayed and profoundly disappointed -- and, on reflection, felt betrayed -- when I heard that you endorsed Barack Obama for president of the United States. For the 20-plus years I have known you, you have been nothing but generous towards me, and I am very fond of you and grateful for your friendship. Our main points of convergence have been my native Iraq, journalism, atheism and our roots in the Left. Your early detection of the nature of Saddam's fascist rule and your principled and stalwart advocacy for the liberation of Iraq - among many other...

Renegade Night on Hardball. First up, Bill Weld. The former Republican governor of Massachusetts, who has endorsed Obama, told Chris Matthews he believed the Dem candidate would, as president, reach across the aisle to govern. Weld didn't—couldn't—cite anything to support his assertion out of Obama's hyper-partisan Senate record in which he's toed the Harry Reid line 97% of the time. But as apostasy goes, that was small potatoes compared to Christopher Hitchens. The God Is Not Great author who, despite his support for the Iraq war, has also recently endorsed Obama, told Matthews he believes McCain is "borderline senile." View...

An excellent article by Fraser Nelson in London's Spectator at the end of July put it as succinctly as I have seen it: At a recent dinner party in the British embassy in Kabul, one of the guests referred to "the Afghan-Pakistan war." The rest of the table fell silent. This is the truth that dare not speak its name. Even mentioning it in private in the Afghan capital's green zone is enough to solicit murmurs of disapproval. Few want to accept that the war is widening; that it now involves Pakistan, a country with an unstable government and nuclear...

Feedback archive → Feedback 2008 Christopher Hitchens—blind to salamander reality A well-known atheist’s ‘eureka moment’ shows the desperation of evolutionists In a recent article in the leftist online magazine Slate, prominent atheistic journalist Christopher Hitchens (b. 1949) thinks he has found the knock-down argument against creationists and intelligent design supporters. Fellow misotheist Richard Dawkins (b. 1941) and another anti-theist Sir David Attenborough (b. 1926) agree. Not surprisingly, there have been questions to us about this, so Dr Jonathan Sarfati responds. As will be seen, their whole argument displays ‘breathtaking inanity’ and ignorance of what creationists really teach, and desperation if...

LAS VEGAS – It was billed in jest as a Friday Night Fight in the city known for epic bouts, but a libertarian conference's headliner debate last night featuring "God is not Great" author Christopher Hitchens offered much more, reflecting the growing visibility and muscle of a new breed of atheists spreading their message with evangelical fervor. The debate was one of eight at this year's FreedomFest, which describes itself as the tradeshow for liberty and the world's largest gathering of free minds. With his trademark wicked wit, the British-born journalist Hitchens, now an American citizen, took on political writer...

Neither faith nor science can answer the most important questions. So why are believers and atheists still bickering? I went to a debate recently in New York between a rabbi and the famous polemicist Christopher Hitchens, on the question "Does God exist?" Hitchens was called on to speak first, and he won the debate with his first two sentences: "I don't know why I have to speak first. He has the burden of proof." The mostly secular ... audience heartily applauded this sally, which was based on the premise -- never challenged by the rabbi -- that science provides an...

If you want to read a serious book about the intervention in Iraq, look to Douglas Feith. When Bush's Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill defected from the Cabinet in 2002 and Ron Suskind told O'Neill's story of being surrounded by fools, Michael Kinsley observed that the president deserved all he got from the book. Anyone dumb enough to hire a fool like O'Neill in the first place ought to have known what to expect. So it goes with the ludicrous figure of Scott McClellan. I used to watch this mooncalf blunder his way through press conferences and think, Exactly where do...

The other night, I was having dinner with some friends in a fairly decent restaurant and was at the very peak of my form as a wit and raconteur. But just as, with infinite and exquisite tantalizations, I was approaching my punch line, the most incredible thing happened. A waiter appeared from nowhere, leaned right over my shoulder and into the middle of the conversation, seized my knife and fork, and started to cut up my food for me. Not content with this bizarre behavior, and without so much as a by-your-leave, he proceeded to distribute pieces of my entree...

It's been more than a month since I began warning Sen. Barack Obama that he would become answerable for his revolting choice of a family priest. But never mind that; the astonishing thing is that it's at least 11 months since he himself has known precisely the same thing. "If Barack gets past the primary," said the Rev. Jeremiah Wright to the New York Times in April of last year, "he might have to publicly distance himself from me. I said it to Barack personally, and he said yeah, that might have to happen." Pause just for a moment, if...

-- snip --And that assumption (widely shared but seldom if ever articulated) is that our engagement with Iraq was somehow "a war of choice" -- to use a favorite catchphrase from a few years ago -- and thus that all of its costs, ranging from the physical damage to Iraqi infrastructure to the moral damage to our warriors, could have been avoided by abstention. I don't know anybody who knows anything about the subject who believes anything so frivolous...

When Christopher Hitchens came on today's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough began by inviting him to comment on "last night's" results. Quipped the famously hard-living Hitchens: "I'm still thinking of it as this morning's result. I hope it doesn't show." Unfortunately for Christopher, it did. See screencap. But whatever price Hitchens was paying for indulgences of the night before did nothing to blunt his acerbic wit. The quondam Englishman turned naturalized American offered acid observations about both Dem contenders. Hillary was first in his sights. He described as "slightly sinister" her listing during last night's victory speech of Florida and...

One of the great moments among many in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver is when we find the young Albert Brooks manning the phones in the campaign office of the man we know (and he does not) to be a double-dyed phony. On behalf of the empty and grinning Sen. Palantine, he is complaining to a manufacturer of lapel buttons. "We asked for buttons that said, 'We Are the People.' These say, 'We Are the People.'… Oh, you don't think there's a difference? Well, we will not pay for the buttons. We will throw the buttons away." Part of the joke...

"At his desk," wrote Christopher Buckley in his email to friends, "in Stamford this morning." Well, one had somehow known that it would have to be at his desk. The late William F. Buckley Jr. was a man of incessant labor and productivity, with a slight allowance made for that saving capacity for making it appear easy. But he was driven, all right, and restless, and never allowed himself much ease on his own account. There was never a moment, after taping some session at Firing Line, where mere recourse to some local joint was in prospect. He was always...

A sour old joke from prewar Germany has two elderly Jews sitting in a Berlin park, with one of them reading a Yiddish paper and the other one scanning the pages of Der Stürmer. The latter Jew is laughing. This proves too much for the former Jew, who says: “It’s not enough you read that Nazi rag, but you find it funny?” “Look,” replies the other. “If I read your paper, what do I see? Jews deported, Jews assaulted, Jews insulted, Jewish property confiscated. But I read Der Stürmer, and there’s finally some good news. It seems that we Jews...

Mr. President, Don't Forget Iran February 19, 2008 WallStreetJournal Christopher Hitchens Dear Mr. President: A few months ago, it became possible to hear members and supporters of your administration going around Washington and saying that the question of a nuclear-armed Iran "would not be left to the next administration." As a line of the day, this had the advantage of sounding both determined and slightly mysterious, as if to commit both to everything and to nothing in particular. That slight advantage has now, if you will permit me to say so, fallen victim to diminishing returns. The absurdly politicized finding...

What is the point of a paper of record that decides the untarnished record is too much for readers? Do you ever wonder what is the greatest enemy of the free press? One might mention a few conspicuous foes, such as the state censor, the monopolistic proprietor, the advertiser who wants either favorable coverage or at least an absence of unfavorable coverage, and so forth. But the most insidious enemy is the cowardly journalist and editor who doesn't need to be told what to do, because he or she has already internalized the need to please—or at least not to...

Rowan Williams' dangerous claptrap about "plural jurisdiction." In December 1931, George Orwell got himself arrested in the slums of East London in order to find out about conditions "inside," and then he wrote an essay about the people he met while in detention. One of them was a buyer for a kosher butcher who had embezzled some of his boss's money. To Orwell's surprise, the man told him that "his employer would probably get into trouble at the synagogue for prosecuting him. It appears that the Jews have arbitration courts of their own, and a Jew is not supposed to...

A few weeks ago, I wrote slightly disobligingly about Jay Lefkowitz, the man who holds the new congressionally mandated post of U.S. special envoy for human rights in North Korea. The North Korean state does not recognize the concept of human rights and considers every one of its citizens to be the property of the ruling family, so Lefkowitz’s job is admittedly an extremely difficult one, but I tried to call attention to the way in which he (in his rather slender annual report to Congress), and the administration in general, had gone somewhat quiet on the subject of North...

Not all atheists are supercilious, of course. Many are content to live and let live, and some even grant that religion (which, in America, basically means Christianity) does some good. But atheism as an organized, evangelizing movement has been on the offensive lately. Witness the "New Atheists" such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, with their aggressive stance against God and their bestselling books attempting to debunk religion. So, assuming you are a theist, what do you say to the atheist who asks, "You don't (chuckle) actually believe in God, do you (snicker)?" The natural response would be...

Reportedly, Christopher Hitchens has just given up smoking. Apparently, this has had no effect on his curmudgeonly tone, but then again, Hitchens could hardly get more pointed in his criticisms. Today he rightly sets his sights on identity politics and exposes it as a trade for one bigotry over another: People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with. One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of "race" or "gender" alone, then by the exact same token I would...

(snip) Those of us who follow politics seriously rather than view it as a game show do not look at Hillary Clinton and simply think "first woman president." We think -- for example -- "first ex-co-president" or "first wife of a disbarred lawyer and impeached former incumbent" or "first person to use her daughter as photo-op protection during her husband's perjury rap." One might come up with other and kinder distinctions (I shall not be doing so) but the plain fact about the senator from New York is surely that she is a known quantity who has already been in...

Tell Abbas to stop educating for war THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 9, 2008 www.jpost.com /servlet/Satellite?cid=1198517337771&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull In his meeting today with Mahmoud Abbas, President George Bush will likely urge the Palestinian Authority president to implement his responsibilities under the road map, such as eliminating the infrastructure of terrorism. Abbas will claim that he is doing the best he can, and respond by demanding that Israel dismantle outposts and freeze settlements. And nothing will change. This sort of pointless, circular maneuvering has, at best, continued for the past 14 years, since the signing of the Oslo principles in 1993. At worst it...

There's something pathetic and embarrassing about our obsession with Barack Obama's race ___ To put it squarely and bluntly, is it because he is or is it because he isn't? To phrase it another way, is it because of what he says or what he doesn't say? Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is the current beneficiary of a tsunami of drool. He sometimes claims credit on behalf of all Americans regardless of race, color, creed, blah blah blah, though his recent speeches appear also to claim a victory for blackness while his supporters—most especially the white ones—sob happily that at...

One of the biggest obstacles facing what’s called the “New Atheism” is the issue of morality. Writers like Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens have to convince people that morals and values are possible in a society that does not believe in God. It’s important to understand what is not in doubt: whether an individual atheist or agnostic can be a “good” person. Of course they can, just as a professing Christian can do bad things. The issue is whether the secular worldview can provide a basis for a good society. Can it motivate and inspire people to be...

Christopher Hitchens has achieved for himself quite a strong position as the American center-right's favorite Trotskyite. To a large extent this is well-earned. Hitch has stood fast in his adamant support for the War on Terror in all its aspects when plenty of fainter hearts far to rightward have fallen into equivocation, second thoughts, and whining. But there is another Hitch, one who defends his remaining hard-left convictions with a vituperation hard to match in the English-speaking media. We usually see this Hitchens when he's writing about religion. Hitch the Rabid was in full display in "Bah, Hannukah" in the December...

It seems flabbergastingly improbable that President George W. Bush learned of the National Intelligence Estimate concerning Iranian nuclear ambitions only a few days before the rest of us did, but the haplessness of his demeanor suggested that he might, in fact, have been telling the truth. After all, had the administration known for any appreciable length of time that the mullahs had hit the pause button on their program in late 2003, it would have been in a position to make a claim that is quite probably true, namely, that our overthrow of Saddam Hussein had impressed the Iranians in...

A few weeks ago, in Britain's Prospect magazine, the paper's foreign editor, Bartle Bull, published a bold essay saying that the high tide of violence in Iraq was essentially behind us and that the ebb had disclosed some interesting things. First, the Iraqi people as a whole had looked into the abyss of civil war and had drawn back from the brink. Second, the majority of Sunni Arabs had realized that their involvement with al-Qaida forces was not a patriotic "insurgency" but was instead a horrific mistake and had exposed their society to the most sadistic and degraded element in...

Jihadists aren't in Afghanistan—or Iraq—because we are there. ___ I call your attention to the front-page report in the Oct. 30 New York Times in which David Rohde, writing from the Afghan town of Gardez, tells of a new influx of especially vicious foreign fighters. Describing it as the largest such infiltration since 2001, Rohde goes on to say, "The foreign fighters are not only bolstering the ranks of the insurgency. They are more violent, uncontrollable and extreme than even their locally bred allies." They also, it seems, favor those Taliban elements who are more explicitly allied with al-Qaida, and...

The attempt by David Horowitz and his allies to launch "Islamofascism Awareness Week" on American campuses has been met with a variety of responses. One of these is a challenge to the validity of the term itself. It's quite the done thing, in liberal academic circles, to sneer at any comparison between fascist and jihadist ideology. People like Tony Judt write to me to say, in effect, that it's ahistorical and simplistic to do so. And in some media circles, another kind of reluctance applies: Alan Colmes thinks that one shouldn't use the word Islamic even to designate jihad, because...

Hitchens: Islamofascism a Valid Term At Slate, Christopher Hitchens defends the use of the term “Islamofascism� to good effect.Hitchens first takes on the faux-intellectuals who refuse to make the obvious connection between modern, radical Islam and manner of life that imposes on those unlucky enough to fall under its sway: It’s quite the done thing, in liberal academic circles, to sneer at any comparison between fascist and jihadist ideology. People like Tony Judt write to me to say, in effect, that it’s ahistorical and simplistic to do so. And in some media circles, another kind of reluctance applies: Alan Colmes...

A Death in the Family The Death of a soldier, Second Lieutenant Mark Daily, who enlisted after reading pro-war articles written by Christopher Hitchens, and the impact it had on Hitchens. - article can't be posted on FR, but it's worth the read - http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/11/hitchens200711?currentPage=1

Why men like Larry Craig continue to court danger in public places