Did I see the same debate you people saw?

Hitchens interrupted D'Souza several times. So what? Didn't Laura Ingraham do it to Brian Sapient as well, and it worked for her?

Hitchens does have a problem with rude behavior. Geez, he is one rude bastard, and yes, he's got to be an alcoholic. While watching Penn and Teller on youtube.com, they interviewed Hitchens for an episode of Mother Theresa, and they had to way for him to finish a pack of cigarettes, and a bottle of Scotch before getting him to talk.

Now, his main problem as a debater is that he mumbles and slurs sometimes. Another problem is that he is one hell of an intellectual, and some of his points may confuse laymen, who happen to be the ones who believe in the christian myth.

D'Souza said something that Hitchens didn't take advantage of, and almost any atheist could have used against him. He said Christianity was introduced to the Indian people of his village by the Portuguese inquisition. Imagine that. The same inquisition that persecuted the Monks of a small island (I think it was Macao) that the Chinese government took from Portugal in 1999, if I remember correctly. D'Souza is following a belief system introduced to his people by a movement that killed 70,000 people, and would have killed more had the inquisitors had the weaponry someone like Stalin had in his possession.

Another stupid argument by D'Souza was the idea that Mother Theresa helped people because of his love of Jesus. What a bunch of crap. This guy seems to believe that Christians are the only people out there capable of good, and whoever isn't a Christian is capable of mass murder. Someone needs to remind Christians that science is what keeps improving the world, and not religion, and science is mostly non-religious.

As a debater, Hitchens is better than Dawkins and Sapient. Dawkins couldn't beat O'Reilly while he was on his show, and Sapient couldn't beat that bitch Ingraham in a debate---her only debate-tactic was making groundless arguments and interrupting Sapient whenever he was making a point.

 D'Souza claimed that Stalin killed more people because he was an atheist. What's this? So if you are a Christian you are capable of killing 70,000 non-Christians instead of 7,000,000? Is there something in the Buy'bull that says don't kill people pass the 70,000 mark? This argument, at best, implies that as a set of rules regulating behavior, Christianity is less of a failure than atheism, but still a failure and has to be replaced. The argument falls apart when you consider countries like the USA, with more than 90% christians, Panama (my country) with 98% catholic and more than 500 murders each year (we only have 3,000,000 people here), while Sweden, Japan with very large non-religious populations have low crime rates.

I have been watching the Atheism Tapes on youtube, and I am starting to notice why the Hitchens, the Dawkins get into trouble with theists.

The problem here is that these two, unlike Daniel Dennett and Steven Weinberg, for example, come out as being too fanatical about atheism. If you claim that religions should be banned, you are going to get in trouble because the communists did ban religions, and the outcome was horrible. The purpose of atheism should be freeing people from superstition, not forcing them to believe what they don't want to believe. Also, if you claim that atheists don't do the kind of stuff theists are capable of doing (Hitchens does this, for example), you may run into trouble. Keep in mind that the communists did some of the things Christians have done, and they were even better at it (mainly because Inquisitors didn't have nukes or machine guns to go after heretics). In the movie Inside Man, the good guys (or bad guys, if you don't like bank robbers at all) played some presidential speech in Albanian to confuse the police. Turns out the speech was given by the President of Albania during the Cold War. A communist who threatened to imprison anyone who owned copies of the Bible or the Koran. The penalty could be three to ten years in prison. This is the kind of stuff that makes me fear my fellow atheists as much as the idea of another inquisition makes my skin crawl. 

But it doesn't matter. Christians will always prove that they aren't the only ones capable of mass murder. We don't have a book as sinister as the Bible or the Koran, but we can be sinister as well. The best way of beating Christians is to debate their beliefs, not to accuse them of doing stuff we as atheists are incapable of doing.

Yes, one of the main problems with atheism and atheists is the lingering ghost of communism. An atheist doctrine that behaved like a religion where Marx was the Messiah, the state was God, and all the Stalins, and the Maos were Popes running inquisitions on whoever didn't buy the crap they were selling. Whenever an atheist says religious people are capable of this or that, the communist ghost will always appear, and this ghost isn't easy to kill, specially if you are claiming that religions are the main cause of trouble in the world. Today, that's true. In the past, it was the communists. In the 1940s, it was the Nazis (with their own form of Christianity), and before that, it was the Kings and the Czars). It seems we are going back to the dark ages with Muslims playing Jihab, and Bush playing Crusades against the Middle East, and that makes us stronger than we were back in the 50s.

One way of killing the commie ghost would be to remind people that Bush's administration is responsible for the torture of political prisoners in Guantanamo, and this is a Christian administration. But the issue here is not who kills and who doesn't kill. It is the claim that religions poison everything which gets Hitchens into trouble. Secular dictatorships helped D'Souza prove that some things can be poisoned without religion. All you need is a doctrine that thinks it can fix the world (communism, nazism, christianity, islam), and you will have trouble because whoever doesn't follow that doctrine becomes an enemy of mankind to the followers of that doctrine. Stalin probably thought he was doing mankind a favor by wiping out his enemies, just like Hitler thought genocide was the solution to the Jewish Problem (assuming there was a Jewish problem to begin with).

It'd be better for atheists to just say that religion offers answers that can be proven to be false. That religion dislikes theories that prove the Bible is wrong (evolution) and sometimes seeks to ban these theories. It'd be better to say that atheists don't have the sex-phobia that Christians have and eventually science will understand the human mind better than a doctrine that believes all the evils of the world came because some nudists ate an apple after a talking snake convinced them to do it. Religions do poison science and thinking. Religions do imprison the mind. But religions aren't the main cause of the world's problems, not by a long shot. Keep in mind that if people created religions, then people are the problem. If religions are replaced by doctrines, then those doctrines can become the problem.

But the claim that religions can do to people stuff that atheists are incapable of doing is dumb. Both, Christians and atheists rely on the morals of society. Christians pick those lines in the Bible that fit society's morals and also try to add to society their ancient, inane morals in the process, and atheists try to change those morals they believe are wrong or ancient, often getting into trouble with Christians. In the end, both are capable of being evil, and D'Souza proved that to Hitchens.

However D'Souza isn't exactly a good debater. Claiming he became a Christian because his ancestors were forced into becoming Christians by Portuguese Inquisitors could've gotten him into trouble had Hitchens' mind being more sober. He also offered Hitchens some trashy arguments that are typical of theists:

(1) Dr. Feelgood argument: religion makes me feel good, so it is true.

(2) The Muse Argument: yes, christianity inspires works of art. It must be true. Someone needs to show him that H. R Giger makes some really nice art involving demons, so I guess we should have more satanists.

(3) Can you explain this? No. Therefore God must be real.

(4) Mother Theresa helped people because Jesus asked her to, so Jesus must be the son of God.

Believe it or not, the last argument is powerful. The human being is a predator by nature, and people tend to be selfish. However a religion that makes people believe there is a universal ruler watching over them can make people self-centered, selfish. The concept of faith is also arrogant all by itself, for believing in something that lacks evidence won't make it true. But there are people, self-centered, arrogant pricks, who do help people thinking this will buy them a ticket to heaven, and these people, without religion, might become selfish assholes, period, as opposed to selfish-assholes being less selfish because of self interest. A paradox in a way, but it helps people like D'Souza claim Christianity is good. Someone needs to remind him that the Catholic Church helps people with HIV, but also says condoms shouldn't be used. 

The best way of beating Christians is to debate their beliefs, not to accuse them of doing stuff we as atheists are incapable of doing. This is a red herring we are throwing at them instead of giving them the real issue: why we don't believe. 

the truth hurts. thanks

ya know, you're not the first to comment on my picture, which means most of you have nothing of importance to say, only insults. And by the way, it was a cheap digital camera that had fog in the lens, its not a glamour shot or anything.

Not at all relevant. Please stop trolling the thread. 

what? by pointing out that Sapient has noones respect in the "real" world outside of his little "we hate god and you should to" group?? I'm just telling it like it is

And yet...

None of these "theists who are clearly better versed and more knowledgable on the subject of Gods existence" bring anything to the discussion.

At best you folk bring ad homs and naked assertions.

Myself, I wish Hitchens would lay of the sauce also (for his health). Still a shame for your troops that Hitchens makes more sense crocked than D'Souza does sober. 

hmmm, did we watch the same debate? Hitchens had his "stock" points on hand and ready to fire away but thats about it, and far as having any substance to his arguement, he was flat on his butt. D'Souza was clear and presise in making his points and never once seemed stumped by any of the lame tired old crap Hitchens (in his drunken state) threw out there. In fact, it makes me want to read "Whats so great about Christianity"

I think this was actually a major underlying reason for the debate.  D'Souza's publisher had a table set up in the lobby of the venue with stacks of the book and a couple of hot Christian College chicks hawking it.  After the debate, he was signing copies.

The King's College, sponsors of the event, is one of those Christian Power colleges that are trying to provide dedicated Christian students with the credentials they need for high-level public policy and business jobs without subjecting them to the critical or self-analytical ideas that might cause them to question the absolute authority of their brainwashing.  Being there with the KC students was like hanging around the quad at Stepford U.

"Which is like being a fluent speaker of Klingon. Seriously, Lux, I can barely respond to your posts without feeling like I'm being dragged down to some subterranean depth, some miserable, stunted level of discourse."

I figured you all saw the debate, I didn't feel like being specific. One point that was made is the fact that "our morals" and our civility can betraced back to Christ himself, whether you like it or not. Hitchens didn't have a reply for this except to say "hey, you don't thik we had morals before Christ came along?" But the truth is, in the Western world, our rules, our way of life is based off of Christian teachings.

Oh and as far as D'Souza having books at a table for sale, thats quite common among most people who go around debating at events like this. Do you really think Dawkins and Harris and Hitchens have NEVER promoted their work this way?

I'll stop cheering on speakers who I support when all the Dawkins fanboys go home and never return to this forum, which we both know ain't goning to happen soon. Poeple who live in glass houses.............

Right yes, that was the point. Basically flinging insults at Brian because he's not the other people seems unfair given the relative "nobody" status of the accuser. (no offense to lux directly, but more of a criticism of his lack of an authoritative status to back up such statements.)

Sapient's probably just short a book deal to be in the same bracket as the others he mentioned tho, already the RRS has generated attention on a national level and on Dawkins' own website he has a link up proclaiming he's also a part of the RRS. (so props FROM one of the people lux named as more legit)

Good idea, maybe we can reach children before the churches brainwash them.   

Kids are bound to run out of red crayons in one of these.  Stoning, fun for all ages! 

hmmm, an atheist coloring book. What would that look like? A blank page? Mao Zedong, Stalin, or maybe the killing fields of Cambodia? wow you're right, an atheist coloring book would be spreading a great messege to kids, not like the christian ones with all that talk about love, mercy and forgiveness. pffttt 

dude, it's PLEATHER....get with the program

You've got a point there. We're identical to them in every respect... except for their adherence to a radical and untenable economic ideology, their personality cults, and their murderous policy toward their political opponents. Job one for Pol Pot was killing the intellectuals, so if that repeats when one of us rises to power as a radical state capitalist, at least you'll be safe. Actually, silencing critics by any means necessary sounds like...

Imagine the fun kids can have shading in the Whore of Babylon.

 "Job one for Pol Pot was killing the intellectuals, so if that repeats when one of us rises to power as a radical state capitalist, at least you'll be safe."

A little offended, but also laughing because it was pretty funny.

Actually the guy from Tongo was over-generalizing the situation.  The vast majority of mammals instinctively avoid eating members of their own species for sustenance.  Nobody is certain why, but it may be that too many diseases (especially viruses, prions) are vectored that way.  There's a theory right now, for instance, that Tazmanian Devils are going extinct because they routinely scavenge the bodies of their own dead, which might be why they're all dying from a virus-induced tumor disease.  Animals don't need a religion to teach them not to eat each other--natural selection takes care of that.

Humans are a notable exception, but in all documented cases of cannibalism, people only routinely eat each other as part of a religious ceremony--and not for sustenance.  In Tongo in the old days, you might eat a little piece of a dead enemy warrior to absorb some of his strength as part of a heavily-ritualized, communal ceremony.  But the calorie intake was insignificant--to live you ate pigs, chickens, fish and plants.

Let me emphasize that--people eat each other *because of* religion, and not from a lack of it. 

All Christianity does is swap one form of ritual religious cannibalism for another--a literal form for a symbolic form.  What is the communion after all? 

"All Christianity does is swap one form of ritual religious cannibalism for another--a literal form for a symbolic form.  What is the communion after all?"

Actually it's called, Transubstantiation.

Transubstantiation (in Latin, transsubstantiatio) is the change of the substance of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ occurring in the Eucharist according to the teaching of some Christian Churches, including the Roman Catholic Church. In Greek, it is called μετουσίωσις (see Metousiosis). (WIKI)

This is the fruit of the church and the main point of the mass, this is a reminder and a commitment that we can have everlasting life through the sacrafice of Jesus. At the last Supper, Jesus told his diciples "Do this in memory of me". Its really quite beautiful and has nothing to do with canibalism. I love how atheist try to portray it as vile and discusting when it very much the opposite.  

I suppose poetry makes no sense to you, only words bereft of meaning. nobody takes the "wafer" or drink the wine and thinks it's snack time 

sorry, i have no idea why it keeps double posting