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Al Sharpton Takes on Christopher Hitchens
Posted on: May 12, 2007 - 9:43am
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Al Sharpton Takes on Christopher Hitchens
Al Sharpton Takes on Christopher Hitchens at the New York Library. Moderated by the editor of Slate.com
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Wow. A vid site that the IT dumbasses haven't found yet. I'm impressed. This should be fun. I've always wanted to see Sharpton knocked off his pedestal.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I find it quite telling that Sharpton calls someone else "the Mormon" not a reall believer, as to his delusion that it is abuse of religion and not religion itself. And I am sure that the Mormon would call it an "abuse" of religion to say, "He's not a real Christian".
He kept on trying to make interpretation the issue and Hitchens made it quite clear that they are inseperable issues. If Sharpton is basing it on personal belief and experiance where is he getting his god belief from? I suppose Sharpton cornered the market on "correct interpretation" whereas the Mormon did not get it right.
The point is "God Is Not Great" DOES adress the issue of the direct corrilation of scripture being used as a weapon. If the bible were never written in the first place, there would be no one to "missinterpret" or "abuse" it.
He also said to attack god and not religion. That is all the more reason to say, "God is not great".
What kind of "source giver" as Sharpton wants to incert, would put people in such a violent home such as the planet and cosmos. Even if Sharpton could prove the existance of said being, I would not call such a being "great" but an inept factory manager at best, and a horrible home provider.
He also did not realize in his own words that he kept on linguistingly opened the door for a non-supernatural cause by his own usage of "something".
"God" is not a "something" but a who. And even if we assume a "who" he has also opened the door to the option of it not being his "who".
Sharpton desperately wants to seperate "God" from "religion" because it allows him to make an excuse for such a claimed being to become so ambiguous as to ignore that religion is a weapon.
"God" cannot be "great" if it's intent is to bring peace and allow humans to "abuse" religion. If "God" were "great" such a being would avoid all this bullshit in the first place.
The fact is Sharpton is in the same boat as the Mormon, Scientologist, Jew and Muslim.
"Abusing religion is wrong" avoids the fact that it happens at all. The potental for abuse exists because people CAN and do pick up these books and "missinterpret" as Sharpton says. How can Sharpton or any other deity believer call a deity "great" when the manual the deity claims to have passed us humans is so flawed that humans can abuse it in the first place.
Either God is inept at writing manuals, or humans wrote this crap and believe this stuff. I would hardly call a book written over 1,000 period by over 40 authors, Divine, or "God" isnpired. I would call it human nature to invent fictional super heros.
Sharpton could not avoid quoting the bible, so for him to say, "that is a seperate issue" is rediculous. Once he starts quoting the book, some other person is going to say that he is "abusing" religion. I am quite sure that Homophobic Evangelicals would say that he is "abusing" the bible by condoning homosexuality. What makes him right and they wrong?
The point is there is no "wrong" way to interpte holy books because people do it all the time and they all see themselves as the ones who got it right. Once someone thinks they got it right they want to share or force it on others. This does not require any skepticism. It merely requires emotional appeal and without any understanding of emotions, the believer will do horrible things because they think they got it right.
Hitchens correctly said that the "golden rule" does not require religion or deity belief. If it did, then whose version? Whose sect? Whose invisable sky daddy?
Funny how prior religions die out, new ones pop up, but dispite all the morphing and changing the species continues.
The logic is simply not there at all for Sharpton.
If God is great, I find it higly rediculous that most biological chances at life, from a tree seedling to male sperm, to female egg, fail. I find it rediculous that people incert such an idealistic utopian "daddy" but at the same time wouldnt go up into space and take their helmets off.
The violence we see in nature and the failure in natural biological oportunities at new life shows that not only is a God a rediculous idea, but retards discovery of natural answers in the future.
If Sharpton wants the "abuse" of religion to end, then he should demand the goverement not fund religion and demand that pastors, priests, ministers and rabbis stay out of politics. These very abuses he rightfully should condemn, are being done by Christians as well. Just because Christians in the west dont strap bombs to themselves does not mean they dont want to be the alpha male and tell others what to do, otherwise they would stay out of politics. "Blue laws" are caused by people who pick up a bible and tell others they cant buy or sell beer on Sunday.
Who are these people to tell me a business owner, or customer what I can or cannot buy? This IS abuse! But to say, "its not god's fault" is a cop out. If "God" was great, then the buck should stop at it, and these "absuses" wouldnt happen ever in the first place.
Sharpton is merely dodging the fact that he doesnt want to face the dark side of religion. If he admits to their being a dark side, then he should face the fact that if one is to claim a "Great" god, then why a dark side existing when you can prevent it knowing that you have that power as an all powerfull being.
If you wouldnt allow the things god(s) do, wouldnt it be wise to hold such a claimed being to at least the same standard, if not a higher one?
"God" has to hide in the shaddows and remain ambigous because that is the best way to buy fiction as fact. "Abuse" wouldnt happen at all if people wouldnt buy absurdities in the first place.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
Thanks for sharing. Looks promising, I'll get to it when I have more time.
Here's a transcipt, if anyone's interested:
http://www.nypl.org/research/calendar/imagesprog/hitchens5707.pdf
Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.
I agree with the moderator: there was no conversion. Sharpton and Hitchens were on separate threads almost the entire time. Hitchens made more intellectual points, but he didn't addressed Sharpton's argument - that belief in a god without dogma was innocuous - until the end of the debate. Then during the question segment, neither Sharpton nor Hitchens provided complete and satisfactory answers. I'm dissapointed with the debate. We learned very little, and nither side "scored" any points.
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First off I agree with Brian37's ( Who looks an awful lot like Mr.Burns ) comment compleatly.So im going to try and not repeat many of the points he made.
Mr.Hitchens opening statement was very precise and well spoken. He Made excellent points throughout the debeate, although i wish he was a bit more assertive on his responses. Al sharpton pointed out that Mr. Hithens had made no effort to examine the actual existance of god, How ever he ( Mr.Hitchens ) did focus on what is truly at the hart of why Active athiests are so vocal against god and his supposed fallowers, and thats the affect it has had upon mankind. To us ( Athiest's ) there is no question in the inexistance of god, and proving it is almost futile when talking to most Thiest's Becuse To argue Faith is close to impossible without pointing out that faith in something without any evidence other than a book written by lots of people is irational. And until they begin to look at the topic of god from a rational veiw point they are unreachable ( Even when some do start to think rationaly there rational proccess is compleatly deluted into twisting facts intil it fits what they want to beleave). Faith is a failsafe for the notion of a god, For when all rational evidence screams for the dissbelefe in god They tell themselves " This is a test of faith. I must have Faith ". Well having faith in a lie dosent make it true.
Al Sharpton Commented ( Several times ) That With out a higher power that there is no moral compas for wich we govern ourselves, so the highest person or group in power would dictate what is right and wrong. As to wich Mr.Hitchens touched on, This is false. Yes they would try and succed to some extent to influence the mass morality of the people under there control, as many leaders have ( if not all ), But to back Rev. Sharptons argument is to deny the natural abillity of most people to think rationaly. In all attempts by men in power to undermine The most basic of human principles there have always been resistance without religous ties of any kind, and always will. Morality and Ethics are not exclusive to Beleivers in a god.
In Conclusion to my short comment Rev. Al sharpton did a horible job debating Mr.Hithens becuse he ( Rev. Al sharpton ) continued to dodge the entire debate by saying that "Were not here to talk about religion were here to talk about your attack on god in your title of your book". Rev. Sharpton Couldnt grasp that since Catholics and christians say that "the bible is the word of the lord" it is in fact compleatly justifieable for Mr.Hitchens to use what the bible says in proving that the irationality of the notion of god is ridiculous. And to use the example of the atrocious acts commited in the name of god with no response or intervention from god does sugest that the christian god is in fact not at all great in any sense of the word.
-AaronZZZ-
Mr. Triple Z
Thank you for posting this - I enjoyed it alot. I just wanted to add my two cents on Ayaan Hirsi Ali appearance at the end. She is a remarkable women. I really enjoyed her second book and would recommed it to anyone interested in Muslim culture in Africa.
“When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.” Desiderius Erasmus
I think the Rev. Sharpton is using a perfect example of the incoherent "god" model. If a Mormon doesn't believe in "god," what does he believe in? How can you arbitrarily decide who's doing the belief thing "right?"
He argues against religious institutions, but for his "god." To whom do we owe our "thanks" for knowing of "god?" Dropping religious dogma would seem more likely a retroactive rejection of the dogma to which one has been introduced, while keeping the ill-defined authority figure.
Then, he argues for religious organizations in the context of Dr. King and the civil rights movement.
al and jessie jackson get on my damn nerve me being a blackman am sick of both of them religious nut jobs...